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F a l l • 2 0 0 8
a r t s&s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a
T h e D e v i l a n d D a n i e l Wa l l a c e
Also inside:
• Politics and the Press
• Deportation Dilemmas
• Chronicling N.C. Movie-Going
• Tim Tyson’s Book on Stage and Screen
T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 1 9/11/08 4:32:39 PM
The College of Arts & Sciences
• Bruce W. Carney
Interim Dean
• William Andrews ’70 MA, ’73 PhD
Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities
• Thomas Clegg
Interim Senior Associate Dean, Sciences
• Karen Gil
Senior Associate Dean,
Social Sciences, International Programs
• Tammy McHale
Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Planning
• James W. May
Senior Associate Dean, Program Development;
Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation
• Bobbi Owen
Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education
Arts & Sciences Foundation
Board of Directors
• Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC, Chair
• James L. Alexandre ’79, Haverford, PA,
Vice-Chair
• Bruce W. Carney, Chapel Hill, NC, President
• William L. Andrews, ’70 MA, ’73 PhD,
Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President
• Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer
• James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary
• D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC
• R. Frank Andrews, ’90, ’95 MBA, Washington, DC
• Valerie Ashby, ’88, ’94 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC
• Constance Y. Battle. ’77, Raleigh, NC
• William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY
• Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA
• Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88, ’93 MBA,
New York, NY
• G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC
• Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92, ’98 MBA, Los Angeles, CA
• Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Cos Cob, CT
• Steven M. Cumbie ’70, ’73 MBA, McLean, VA
• Jaroslav T. Folda, III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Mary Dewar Froelich ’83, Charlotte, NC
• Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA
• Emmett Boney Haywood ’77, ’82 JD, Raleigh, NC
• William T. Hobbs, II ’85, Charlotte, NC
• Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD
• Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC
• William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX
• Paula R. Newsome ’77, Charlotte, NC
• John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA
• Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL
• H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC
• Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88, ’94 MBA,
Greenwich, CT
• Thomas M. Uhlman ’71, MS, ’75 PhD,
Madison, NJ
• Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK
• Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA, London, UK
• Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH
From the dean F r o m t h e D e a n
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008
Still making a difference,
with your help
Former Dean Holden Thorp’s elevation to
chancellor is great news for UNC and for North Carolina
(see inside back cover). It also presents new opportunities
for the College of Arts and Sciences.
Holden is one of our own — a Kenan professor,
former chemistry chair, N.C. native and College alumnus.
He understands the centrality of the College to “the
Carolina experience.” Like all of us in the College, he
wants what’s good for UNC to be good for the state and
the world.
That’s why I am delighted to serve as interim dean
as the University searches for the next dean of the College. I’m drawing on my experience
as a longtime faculty member, former chair of the department of physics and astronomy and
former senior associate dean for the College. I expect a smooth transition as we continue
moving ahead with our current senior management team, with the addition of distinguished
physicist Thomas Clegg as interim senior associate dean for the sciences.
Thanks to Holden’s leadership, the excellence of our colleagues, staff and students,
and the generosity of our alumni and friends, the College is stronger than at any time in our
history. We ended the Carolina First campaign with nearly $390 million in private gifts.
We are not standing still. In this issue of our magazine, you can learn how the most
recent gifts to the College are enhancing our academic programs in Honors, creative writing,
political science, Jewish studies, physics, computer science and mathematics.
You can also see how discovery, creativity and learning in the College affect lives in and
beyond North Carolina. For example, our faculty associated with the Institute for the Study of
the Americas and the Center for Global Initiatives are studying the unintended consequences
of new immigrant deportation efforts involving local law enforcement agencies.
This issue also features historian Robert Allen, who is developing the first online
statewide database documenting the social and cultural experience of movie-going in the
early 20th century.
You’ll also learn that alumni Jeb Stuart, a Hollywood screenwriter/director, and Mike
Wiley, a North Carolina actor/playwright, are adapting Blood Done Sign My Name, Tim
Tyson’s memoir of an Oxford, N.C., racial murder, for both the stage and screen. And
alumnus and Hollywood star Billy Crudup is set to receive the PlayMaker Award.
Our cover story finds Big Fish author Daniel Wallace adjusting to life as a successful
novelist and a distinguished professor of English. Another feature reveals how computer
scientist Gary Bishop and his students are developing technologies that directly benefit
children with visual impairments and other disabilities.
We couldn’t resist asking public policy professor Hodding Carter, Jimmy Carter’s State
Department spokesperson and a longtime broadcast commentator, to analyze the role of the
press in this historic presidential campaign.
Finally, in our annual Honor Roll, we salute the many alumni and friends whose
generosity ensures that College faculty, students and programs continue to make a difference
in North Carolina and the world. We thank you for your support and for staying connected to
Carolina through the College of Arts and Sciences.
Bruce W. Carney, Interim Dean
Bruce W. Carney
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 2 9/11/08 4:32:41 PM
Table of Contents
F e a t u r e s
6 • Deportation Dilemmas
Exploring the unintended
consequences of new local immigration
enforcement policies
10 • Making History
Come Alive
Two alums bring book about Oxford,
N.C., murder to the stage and screen.
12 • Geeks Do Good
Computer science professor and
students invent gadgets for kids
with disabilities.
14 • The Devil and
Daniel Wallace
The Big Fish author has come a long
way from doodling refrigerator magnets
to landing a movie deal and a
distinguished professorship at UNC.
16 • Going to the Show
Historian chronicles N.C. movie-going
through new digital archive.
Cover photo: Daniel Wallace gets used to his self-portrait and his new role as J. Ross Macdonald
Professor of English and Creative Writing. (Photo by Steve Exum, illustration by Daniel Wallace)
T a b l e o f
C o n t e n t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008
D e p a r t m e n t s
inside front cover
From the Dean
Still making a difference,
with your help
2 High Achievers
DeSimone wins prestigious MIT prize,
Billy Crudup to receive PlayMaker
Award, Kevin Stewart really rocks,
super student scholars, and more
5 Point-of-View
Hodding Carter III on the press and
the presidential campaign
19 Alumni Profile
Folklore alum John Hubbell is
working on new museums for
B.B. King and Earl Scruggs.
20 Highlights
Major gifts for Honors, creative writing
and political science; new professorships;
guarding the Galapagos; UNC &
Duke join forces in German; revealing
new research on teen violence; algae &
global warming; and more
27 College Bookshelf
New books from faculty and alumni
explore North Carolina barbecue,
Cuba, experimental philosophy,
General Lee’s Army, Thomas Wolfe’s
student writings, and more
28 Honor ROll
We thank our many alumni and
friends for their generous support of
the College of Arts and Sciences.
inside back cover
We pay tribute to Holden Thorp,
Carolina’s new chancellor.
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 1
10
Todd Drake
16
Steve Exum
6
Steve Exum
14
Steve Exum
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 3 9/11/08 4:32:57 PM
High Achievers High Billy Crudup
to receive
PlayMaker
Award
Tony Award-winning
theatre
and film star and
UNC alumnus Billy
Crudup will receive
the PlayMaker
Distinguished
Achievement Award
at the 21st annual
PlayMakers Ball in
November.
The ball is the
annual fund-raising gala for PlayMakers
Repertory Company, the professional theatre
in residence in the College of Arts and
Sciences.
Crudup, who received an undergraduate
degree in speech communications from
Carolina in 1990, has had several starring
roles in Hollywood films in recent years. He
earned a Best Actor Award from the Paris
Film Festival for his star performance in the
critically acclaimed movie “Jesus’ Son,” and
he had a major part as a rock musician in
the Academy Award-winning film “Almost
Famous” with Frances McDormand and Kate
Hudson. He also starred in “Charlotte Gray”
and “World Traveler.”
He was most recently seen in the
romantic comedy “Dedication,” opposite
Mandy Moore. In 2006, he played alongside
Robert DeNiro, Matt Damon and Angelina
Jolie in “The Good Shepherd.” He was also in
the third installment of “Mission Impossible.”
His next project is playing J. Edgar Hoover in
“Public Enemies.”
Crudup was seen in “Big Fish,” Columbia
Pictures’ comic fantasy for director Tim Burton,
based on the novel by UNC English professor
Daniel Wallace. (See story on Daniel Wallace
on page 14.)
Crudup has also earned major credits
and honors in the theatre. He won a “Best
Performance by a Featured Actor” Tony Award
for his role in the Broadway production of “The
Coast of Utopia” in 2006. He was seen in “The
Pillowman” in 2005, and he received a Tony
nomination for “Best Actor.”
He starred in
“The Elephant Man”
at the Royale Theater,
for which he was
nominated for a Tony
for ���Best Performance
by a Leading Actor in
a Play.” He made his
Broadway debut in Tom
Stoppard’s “Arcadia,”
which won him several
awards, including the Outer
Critics Circle Award for
“Outstanding Debut of an
Actor.” •
USA Baseball
names Mueller
committee
chair
USA Baseball has named exercise and
sport science professor Fred Mueller as the
chair of the organization’s medical and safety
advisory committee.
Mueller is also the director of the
National Center for Catastrophic Sports
Injury Research, based at UNC, and the
research director for the National Operating
Committee on Standards for Athletic
Equipment.
A member of the medical and safety ad-visory
committee since 1993, Mueller takes
over the position of chair from the late Barry
Goldberg of Yale University.
USA Baseball governs national amateur
baseball and is a member of the United
States Olympic Committee. •
This teacher really rocks
How old is Grandfather Mountain? Are
the Barrier Islands moving? Is there gold in
the Carolinas?
These are the kinds of questions
geologist Kevin Stewart answers through
his classes, his research and his latest book,
Exploring the Geology of the Carolinas.
Stuart won the 2008 Board of Governors’
Award for Excellence in Teaching, the top
instructional honor given to a tenured faculty
member at each UNC campus.
Stewart communicates his contagious
enthusiasm for geologic knowledge to his
Carolina students at all levels. A member
of the Chapel Hill faculty since 1986, he
teaches classes in structural geology and
the geology of North America, as well as a
seminar on the geology of North Carolina
open only to first-year students.
He loves
teaching geology
as much as his
students enjoy
learning about it.
“Many
of the world’s
most pressing
problems,
such as global
warming,
are geologic
problems,”
he says, “so I
think the students can see an immediate
connection between what they learn in the
classroom and what they see in the news.”
His book, published by UNC Press,
includes a brief geological history of the
Carolinas with 31 field trips to easily
accessible and often familiar sites, such
as Chimney Rock, Linville Falls, Stone
Mountain, Jockey’s Ridge and Oregon
Inlet. •
2 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
H i g h A c h i e v e r s
Billy Crudup
Kevin Stewart
Fred Mueller
Dan Sears
Steve Exum
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High Achievers
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 3
DeSimone wins
prestigious MIT prize
Chemist Joseph M. DeSimone won the
prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for his
innovations in polymer chemistry. He was cited
for pioneering inventions, lab-to-marketplace
entrepreneurship and commitment to mentorship.
DeSimone is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor
of Chemistry in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences
and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of
Chemical Engineering at N.C. State University.
A well-recognized chemist and polymer
expert, DeSimone is known for the development of
groundbreaking solutions in green manufacturing and
promising applications in gene therapy and drug delivery, as well as medical devices.
“Joe is clearly one of the most inventive researchers in all of science,” said Robert S.
Langer, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who
nominated DeSimone for the prize.
The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages
sustainable new solutions to real-world problems, and enables and inspires young
people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. •
Online Extra: Video profile and podcasts: http://college.unc.edu.
Pérez named Academy of
Arts and Sciences fellow
Historian Louis Pérez Jr. has been elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and
most prestigious honorary societies.
Pérez is the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and director
of UNC’s Institute for the Study of the Americas. His current research
explores the sources of Cuban nationality and identity. He is the author of
To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society (2005), a social and cultural history of
suicide in Cuba, and his latest, Cuba in the American Imagination, (see page 27) both by UNC
Press. His research interests center on the 19th and 20th century Caribbean, with emphasis
on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. He teaches courses on the history of Latin America,
Mexico, the Caribbean and Cuba.
The list of new Academy fellows includes U.S. Supreme Court senior associate justice
John Paul Stevens, computer company founder Michael Dell, two-time cabinet secretary and
former White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, Academy Award-winning filmmakers
Ethan and Joel Cohen, and blues guitarist B.B. King. •
H i g h A c h i e v e r s
Chemist wins DuPont
Young Professor award
Wei You, assistant professor of
chemistry, has received a $75,000 DuPont
Young Professor grant.
He is one of only 17 researchers from
the United States, China, Spain and India
to be chosen for the award this year.
You’s research includes work
in the field of organic
photovoltaics, solar cells
that are thinner and more
flexible than traditional
silicon-based solar cells.
He will use the three-year grant
to explore new materials and ways of
fabricating photovoltaic cells, with the aim
of creating high efficiency, low-cost cells
that use sunlight to generate energy.
The DuPont program is designed to
provide start-up assistance to promising
young and untenured research faculty
working in areas of interest to DuPont’s
long-term business. •
Louis Pérez Jr.
Joseph DeSimone
Wei You
Dan Sears
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 5 9/11/08 4:33:15 PM
High Achievers Point-H i g h A c h i e v e r s
4 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Lisa Bond Stephanie Jones
Mike Tarrant
Danielle Allen
Elinor Benami
Super
student
scholars
Seven students in
the College have received
national distinguished
scholarships.
• Lisa Bond of Bowie,
Md., and Stephanie Jones
of Cary, N.C., were named Churchill
Scholars.
The scholarships support graduate
work at Cambridge University in England
and are valued at $46,000 to $52,000.
Bond was a biology major with a
chemistry minor at Carolina. She will use
the scholarship to earn a master’s degree
in biochemistry. Jones, a chemistry major
with a minor in entrepreneurship, will seek
a master’s degree in chemistry. Both aim
to become university research professors.
At UNC, Bond was a research assistant
in the genetics lab of biology professor Kerry
Bloom. She also was an author on a scientific
paper published in January in Current
Biology.
Last year, Bond interned at the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the
National Institutes for Health. She studied
the role that myosin proteins play in cellular
processes, including transportation of
messenger RNA. Mutation of one of these
proteins has been implicated in disorders
including heart disease; too much of the
protein may play a role in prostate cancer,
she said.
Jones had conducted research at UNC
since she was a high school junior.
“The University of Cambridge will be
the perfect place to continue my exploration
of how chemical factors contribute to stem
cell biology, and how materials can be
rationally designed to induce differentiation
and tissue repair,” she said.
• Danielle Allen of Monroe, N.C.,
received a Truman Scholarship, which is
worth $30,000 for graduate studies.
Allen plans to use the award to attend
law school. A double major in public
policy and economics, she also is earning
a minor in urban studies and planning at
UNC. She plans to become an attorney
for an organization that works to address
inequalities in public education.
She was also recently named one of
Glamour Magazine’s “Top 10 (Next) Role
Models,” a title given to highly accomplished
female college students.
The summer after her freshman
year at UNC, Allen taught English to
socioeconomically disadvantaged children
in Austin, Texas — one of four summer
enrichment and service experiences provided
to her as a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
Before law school, Allen plans to work
for two years with Teach for America.
• Mike Tarrant of Raleigh, N.C., was
awarded a Luce Scholarship to live and learn
in Asia.
A double major in political science and
communication studies, Tarrant was student
body vice president at Carolina.
The Henry Luce Foundation provides
the scholarships for a year’s internship in Asia,
with the goal of acquainting future American
leaders with Asian colleagues in their fields.
Tarrant plans to
pursue graduate degrees
in public administration or
public policy and higher
education administration.
“I intend to dedicate
my life to ensuring that
higher education continues
to be ‘the mind in service
to society,’” Tarrant said.
• Elinor Benami of
Knoxville, Tenn., was awarded a Morris
K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship,
one of the nation’s top merit awards.
The award will cover tuition,
books, room and board for up to $5,000
for Benami’s junior year.
Benami, who is double-majoring
in international studies and economics,
plans a career in environmental
consulting.
“Through my work, I hope
to encourage an understanding of how
environmental issues have ramifications on
many other significant issues in the world,”
she said.
Udall scholarships are awarded
to students interested in careers in
environmental, health care or public policy.
• Ben Edwards of Knightdale, N.C.,
and Ben Bogardus of Cullowhee, N.C., have
won Hollings Scholarships from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA).
The Hollings Scholarships provide
$8,000 in academic assistance during
the winners’ junior and senior years. The
program also provides a 10-week paid
summer internship.
Edwards is pursuing a major in
environmental science and a minor in
marine sciences. He is a Carolina Scholar
and a National Marine Science Bowl state
champion.
Bogardus is pursuing a major in
environmental science and a minor in
geology. He serves as a research assistant for
the UNC geography department on a dam
and stream restoration study in Chapel Hill
and the Adirondacks. •
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 6 9/11/08 4:33:27 PM
Point-of-View P o i n t - o f - V i e w
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 5
has produced stunning results. Major “isms”
— sexism, racism, ageism — have lost most
of their wind. Bright, able candidates have
confronted each other in both parties. Each
party has eventually embraced a non-conventional
candidate, the Democratic Party
in particular deciding to throw out virtually
all the shibboleths of over two centuries of
American political history.
But the media haven’t measured up to
the moment.
Start with the big picture, then narrow
the focus to the micro. At the very time
that the world and nation are in the midst
of fundamental transition and change, with
long-deferred systemic problems coming
home to roost, the mainstream media are
relentlessly cutting back on the quantity and
quality of news coverage and reporters. You
can’t actually do more with less in the news
business, no matter how hard some media
executives try to pretend otherwise. When
you gut resources, you shortchange the public.
Just as the political handlers continue
to perfect their craft, trying to control the
parameters of each campaign’s narrative by
ruthless manipulation of imagery and facts,
the babbling heads of talk media spend most
of their time amplifying spin rather then
deconstructing it. As the veteran political
reporter and columnist David Broder wrote
two decades ago, the press’s obligation is to
break away from each campaign’s thematic
monologue and demand honest straight talk
from the candidates about hard, specific
issues. What we have instead, over and over,
is obsessive concentration on pseudo-events,
manufactured issues and artful demagoguery
about teapot tempests. Many of the peacocks
Begin with an assumption. In our
democratic system, perhaps the press’s most
valuable role is to provide the information
necessary for citizens to make informed
decisions about their government and its
officials. Without such information, we are
quite literally at the mercy of those who are
supposed to be our servants.
Add a cliché, much beloved of political
journalists of the past half century or so. The
reporters’ job is to write the first, rough draft
of history.
With that as background, consider the
broadcast echo chamber we endured in
waiting rooms, airport gateways and our own
homes over the interminable primary process.
What kind of grade did the “first, rough” drafts
you and I were served by those ubiquitous
24/7 cable news gong shows deserve?
Read the newspapers most Americans
encounter in their home towns.
Listen to radio. Go online and sample
that endless array of Web sites and
blogs promising news, information
and opinion. Watch network and
local television. What can most of us learn
about the world from the dietary array most
readily available? How much of the new
media can be trusted as something more than
ideology and bile masquerading as informed
commentary?
Now confront the question that haunts
the press during and after every presidential
campaign, none more so than this year’s.
How good a job have the media done in
covering the shift-shaping, paradigm-shattering
realities of election year 2008?
On the basis of a half-century’s experience
as a newspaper reporter and editor, television
correspondent and commentator, government
official and political activist, I am depressed
by what I believe are the unpleasantly clear
answers to all these questions.
On the one hand, the political process
of the political
commentariat
seem to
be without
shame or self-awareness.
Watch, read
and listen long
enough, and
it becomes evident they have decided that
glib mastery of insider political baseball is the
main point of the presidential election.
There are noteworthy exceptions to
the preceding indictment. But even the best
are under pressure to revert to the mean,
to dilute the product while amplifying the
volume. It is a depressing time for those who
care about good journalism, no less than for
those who care about the nation’s political
health.
What is the best way for
journalists to cover the presidential
campaign? By covering the news at
home and abroad with consistency,
depth and integrity. By exploring
and amplifying the important issues, refuting
lies and demanding answers. By pulling back
from the temptation to behave like self-satisfied
players in the political game.
Viewed through the long lens of
American history, this is a watershed political
year. It deserves more, much more, from the
press, but the prospects are not bright.
— Hodding Carter is the University
Professor of Public Policy and Leadership
at UNC. He served as State Department
spokesperson for President Jimmy Carter
and went on to become a nationally
known television commentator and a chief
correspondent for “Frontline” on PBS. Before
coming to UNC in 2006, he served as
president and chief executive officer of the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. •
Hodding Carter III
The Press and the Presidential Campaign
By Hodding Carter III
... the babbling heads of talk media
spend most of their time amplifying spin
rather than deconstructing it. [ ]
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 7 9/11/08 4:33:34 PM
6 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
mother driving her children to visit their
father in Maryland was pulled over late
one summer night by a sheriff’s deputy in
Alamance County for displaying an improper
registration tag.
A minor offense that might have
resulted in a delay and fine for another driver
held dire consequences for this family. The
mother, an undocumented immigrant from
Latin America, was passing through a county
where deputies are embracing a new effort
to enforce a deportation law that they say is
designed to crack down on violent crime.
The sweeping impact of the law
is the subject of a new UNC study
involving faculty in the College of Arts
and Sciences.
In the Alamance case, the
woman’s “crime” was crossing the U.S.
border to feed her family and driving
without a valid license, which, by state
law, illegal immigrants are not able to obtain.
She was handcuffed, jailed and quickly slated
for deportation, leaving her three children,
ages 6, 10 and 14, to fend for themselves.
The authorities left the distraught siblings
in a car along I-85 in the middle of the night,
with an adult passenger they barely knew;
he soon fled the scene because of his own
immigration woes. The children, two of them
legal U.S. citizens, huddled in the dark for
hours until their father, an undocumented
immigrant, could find someone to transport
him there. Driving without a license could
have ended with his deportation.
At press time, the two youngest children
were with their father, and their older sister
was with another relative.The fragmented
family is more uncertain and fearful than ever
of what their future holds.
Exploring the unintended consequences of
new local immigration enforcement policies
DEPORTATION
DILEMMAS
B y D e e R e i d
This is just one of more than 5,300 North Carolina cases processed
for deportation since 2006 — more than 50 per week — according to
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office (ICE).
The Alamance case illustrates the complex consequences
associated with 287(g), the section of a 1996 federal law that authorizes
local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of jail
inmates and begin deportation proceedings for those who are in the
country illegally.
The program is now being enforced in seven North Carolina
counties: Alamance, Cumberland, Durham, Gaston, Henderson,
Mecklenburg and Wake — making North Carolina the national leader
in 287(g) deportation programs.
Cabarrus County has signed a memorandum of understanding to
implement the program, and 15 other N.C. counties are considering
it, including Alexander, Brunswick, Buncombe, Carteret, Columbus,
Duplin, Guilford, Iredell, Lee, Lincoln, Pender, Randolph, Surry, Union
and Yadkin.
The N.C. Sheriffs Association received $750,000 in state funding
last year and another $1 million this year for training and support to
spread the program across the state. Community advocates question the
motivation of the Sheriffs Association, which refers to undocumented
immigrants as “illegal alien invaders,” claims Mexicans are responsible
for most drug activity in North Carolina, and argues that the state should
reduce the number of legal visas offered to
immigrants.
UNC scholars are exploring the
social and economic costs, benefits and
impacts of 287(g) in North Carolina to
ensure that state and local officials have
accurate information before the program is
expanded. Their study is sponsored by the
Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA)
in the College of Arts and Sciences and the
Center for Global Initiatives (CGI).
The cost-benefit analysis is part of
a larger university-wide student-faculty
research circle on 287(g) issues that
was started in the summer of 2007.
Another product of this group is a legal
report researched and compiled by the
Immigration/Human Rights Policy Clinic
under the direction of Deborah Weissman,
the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor
in the School of Law.
“We want to make sure that
policymakers have all of the information they need before they
implement this,” said anthropologist Hannah Gill ’99, assistant director
of ISA and CGI, coordinator of the research circle and co-principal
investigator of the 287(g) cost-benefit study, along with Mai Nguyen
(see facing page).
Gill is author of Going to Carolina Del Norte, which highlights
A North Carolina
Todd Drake
Craig McDuffie
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 7
continued
their impact on the state’s economy.
Nguyen was born in South Vietnam
and emigrated at age 2 in 1975 after the fall
of Saigon. She and her family lived at first in
a refugee camp in Arkansas. She was named
a UNC Faculty Engaged Scholar because her
work directly engages local communities.
[See page 12 for a story on another Faculty
Engaged Scholar.]
• Jacqueline Hagan, associate
professor of sociology, and an expert on
the impact of U.S. deportation policy on
individuals and families on both sides of the
border.
Scenes from Celaya, Mexico, where many Chapel Hill and Carrboro immigrants once lived, reprinted from
Going to Carolina del Norte by Hannah Gill. ABOVE: Where migrants catch the bus to Chapel Hill, Burling-ton,
Greensboro and other North Carolina destinos. LEFT: A young Tar Heel fan displays his connection to a
faraway land where many of his former neighbors now live and work.
the stories of immigrants from Celaya, Mexico, who live in Carrboro,
N.C. She teaches an international studies/ service learning course on
Latin American migrant perspectives, in which students research and
work with immigrants in North Carolina and spend spring break in the
immigrants’ communities back in Guanajuato, Mexico. Some of her
students returned to Mexico with Nourish International, a UNC student-founded
nonprofit organization, and helped raise $40,000 to build a
community center providing services and jobs.
College scholars involved in the 287(g) research circle, include:
• Mai Nguyen, co-principal investigator of the cost-benefit analysis
and assistant professor in city and regional planning. She is an expert
on local immigration ordinances in North Carolina and on community
development and crime prevention among disadvantaged and
immigrant populations. She wrote “Five Myths about Illegal Immigration
in North Carolina,” which debunks stereotypes about immigrants and
Some
immigrants
are married to
U.S. citizens
and some or
all of their
children may
be citizens as
well. When the
undocumented
parent is
deported,
he or she
may reluctantly
leave behind
children in the
U.S. who are
citizens, so
that they can
pursue better
educational
and work
opportunities.
Niklaus Steiner
Craig McDuffie
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8 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
She also has co-authored a study on the unintended human and
economic consequences of tightening the southern U.S. border, including
increased deaths among immigrants taking more dangerous detour routes
to the U.S. Her newest book, Migration Miracle (Harvard University Press),
looks at the role of religion in immigrants’ decisions to migrate and in
helping them cope with the arduous journey.
• Mary Donegan, a Ph.D. student in city and regional planning,
is serving as research assistant, with funding from the Vice Chancellor for
Engagement and the Vice Chancellor for Research.
Since April, the UNC group has held three public forums with
county commissioners, law enforcement authorities, business executives,
immigrant advocates, Hispanic community leaders and members of the
general public. Researchers have been collecting and analyzing data on the
immigrants arrested under 287(g) and expect to issue a full report in the fall.
North Carolina
has one one of
the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the United States (the top five
states are all in the Southeast). More than 595,000 Hispanic immigrants
lived in the state in 2006, a 58 percent increase over the previous six
years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. While 300,000 to 400,000
undocumented immigrants may live in N.C., according to the Pew Center,
most of the recent increase in the Hispanic population is actually due to
births, not border crossings, and those children are legal U.S. citizens.
Interest in 287(g) increased in the wake of Congressional failure to
enact reforms that might have slowed illegal immigration and created a
path to legal status for immigrants who are already living and working in
this country.
The federal program got a foothold in North Carolina in 1999 when
then Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said he thought it would help
decrease violent crime. However, UNC researchers’ preliminary findings
show no correlation between increased crime and immigration.
As North Carolina’s Latino population grew between 1997 and 2006,
the incidents of violent crime and property crime decreased statewide,
according to researcher Nguyen.
Preliminary data in Alamance and Mecklenburg counties show
that nearly one-third of immigrants processed for deportation were
apprehended for misdemeanors or traffic violations, such as driving
without a license, not violent crimes.
What’s more, 287(g) itself may make communities less safe because it
discourages immigrants from reporting crimes that they witness, and it may
make it easier for others to commit crimes against immigrants, according to
the UNC study.
The 287(g) study group aims to measure the local costs and benefits
of the program.
“The perception is that it doesn’t cost local law enforcement
anything” because initial funds are provided by federal and state
government, said Nguyen. But there are ongoing local costs for staff,
equipment and maintenance, she said.
Tienda Don José in Carrboro resembles
the bodegas back in Celaya.
Proponents
of 287(g) say
they never
intended
for children
to be left
vulnerable
by the
new policy.
But they
also say that
undocumented
immigrants
have only
themselves
to blame
for these
problems
because they
chose to cross
the border
illegally.
Todd Drake
Craig McDuffie
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 9
More Immigration Experts
In addition to scholars involved in the 287(g) study project,
many College faculty are researching other aspects of immigration.
Here are a few highlights:
• Altha Cravey, associate professor of geography, has been
involved in daily social activities of immigrants in the U.S. South for
several years. She examines the impacts of globalization on migrants
and their culture, and how immigrants creatively affect the process
of political, economic and cultural interaction in the hemisphere.
She is working on a documentary film about cultural celebrations of
the Virgin of Guadalupe in Durham, N.C. She is also the author of
Women and Work in Mexico’s Maquiladoras.
• Nichola Lowe, assistant professor of city and regional
planning, focuses on economic development policy and workforce
development. She is studying the skill development process of
immigrant laborers in the U.S. construction industry.
• Margarita Mooney, assistant professor of sociology,
has researched the adaptation of immigrants from Haiti and Latin
America. She has a forthcoming book on Haitian immigrants and
she also recently co-authored a study on the pathways to success
taken by high-achieving Latino/a students at 27 elite public and
private institutions of higher education.
�� Ted Mouw, associate professor of sociology, has been
studying the economic and social impacts of globalization in Mexico
and Indonesia. He is interested in social mobility and the impact of
social networking among Hispanic immigrants in North Carolina.
Regardless of intent, 287(g) hurts both legal and undocumented immigrants,
as the story of the Alamance County highway arrest reveals.
Many undocumented immigrants living in North Carolina today
have been in the U.S. for years. Their households can be a blend of legal
and illegal immigrants, said Hagan, the UNC sociologist.
Some immigrants are married to U.S. citizens and some or all
of their children may be citizens as well, she explained. When the
undocumented parent is deported, he or she may reluctantly leave
behind children in the U.S. who are citizens, so that they can pursue
better educational and work opportunities.
Hagan found that families get fragmented as a result of long-term
migration and that can be further complicated with deportation.
Immigrants who stay in the U.S. for a long period form relationships here
that may end when the immigrant is deported. Depending on how long
the immigrant has been away from the homeland, he or she may have a
difficult time getting adjusted back in Latin America, she said.
Another troubling impact is that when immigrants are deported,
they can no longer send money back to their loved ones in the
homeland, Hagan said.
In Mexico alone, such remittances
totaled $23.7 billion in 2006, representing
the country’s second largest source of foreign
income, next to oil. The Bank of Mexico
reports that remittances dropped 2.9 percent in
the first quarter of this year.
Regardless of their legal status, children
are emotionally and financially affected by
deportation.
Proponents of 287(g) say they never
intended for children to be left vulnerable
by the new policy. But they also say that
undocumented immigrants have only
themselves to blame for these problems
because they chose to cross the border illegally.
Gill says that many immigrants feel they
have no choice. “They don’t really want to
come here. They do it out of necessity.” •
• Krista Perreira, associate professor of public policy,
has been studying the inter-relationships between family, health
and social policy among low-income women, teens and children
in the Hispanic immigrant population in North Carolina. She
recently completed a study of the mental health of immigrant
children and is conducting an ongoing study of the academic
experiences of Latino/a youth in North Carolina.
• Roberto Quercia, professor of city and regional
planning and director of the Center for Community Capital, is
an expert on housing and banking. Researchers at the Center
recently evaluated Nuestro Barrio, a Hispanic soap opera or
telenovela aired on television in the Carolinas, which was
designed to educate immigrants about finances and banking.
The study concluded that the programs appealed to viewers and
increased their awareness of financial issues.
• Nina Martin, assistant professor of urban geography,
joined the College this summer as the first Jordan Family Fellow
in International Studies. Born in Dublin and educated in London,
Montreal and Chicago, she has a global perspective. She has been
studying community responses to changing economic and social
conditions in U.S. cities, including immigration and low-wage
work in unsafe conditions.
The Jordan professorship was established to help the College
recruit and retain outstanding junior faculty. The endowment is
funded by a bequest from the late William Jordan ’38 in honor
of his mother, Louise Manning Huske Jordan, with support from
nephew Stuart Jordan ’85 and his wife Sheri. •
Craig McDuffie
Craig McDuffie
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10 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Mike Wiley was standing in the
spotlight, portraying Abraham Lincoln in
a sixth-grade school play in Roanoke, Va.,
when he first fell in love with acting.
“It had this effect that went right down
to my toes. I loved it so much I probably
beamed for two days after that,” said Wiley,
who received an MFA from the Professional
Actor Training Program in UNC’s
department of dramatic art in 2004. “It just
took off in my body and brain like wildfire.”
Over the years, Wiley has dabbled in
advertising and editing, but acting has always
called him back.
Acting isn’t the only thing that consumes
Wiley like wildfire. He has a passion,
what some would call a life mission, to tell
the forgotten stories of American history
— particularly African-American history —
to bring those stories out in the open, from
the page to the stage.
Through his Apex, N.C.-based
company, Mike Wiley Productions, he
has taken those stories on the road — to
schools, community theaters, churches and
public libraries. Wiley’s original one-man
shows have brought to life Virginia slave
Henry “Box” Brown, who mailed himself
to freedom in a crate; baseball player Jackie
Robinson, who broke the color barrier; and
14-year-old Emmett Till, who was murdered
in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white
woman.
“Students have forgotten so much of
their national history,” Wiley said. “It’s my
job to reignite that desire to know this history,
to know where they came from … because I,
too, have benefited from my ancestors.”
Wiley’s latest project, perhaps his most
personal and ambitious to date, has strong
North Carolina ties. He has written a one-man
play based on author Tim Tyson’s 2004
memoir, Blood Done Sign My Name, which
examines the civil unrest that followed the
brutal murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow,
a 23-year-old African-American veteran, by
three white men in Oxford, N.C., in 1970.
An all-white jury acquitted the men of the
murder. The book was chosen as the Carolina
Summer Reading Program book in 2005.
Tyson is an adjunct professor of American
studies at UNC and a senior scholar at the
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke
University. The son of Methodist minister
Making
History
Come Alive
One alum brings book
about Oxford murder
from the page to the stage…
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
Steve Exum
Playwright and actor
Mike Wiley (MFA ’04) at the
Oxford, N.C., gravesite
of Henry Marrow.
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 12 9/11/08 4:34:35 PM
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 11
A friend sent Hollywood screenwriter and Carolina alum Jeb Stuart the book
Blood Done Sign My Name when he was on vacation three years ago.
Author Tim Tyson’s 2004 memoir examines the civil unrest that followed the brutal
murder of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old African-American veteran, by three white men
in Oxford, N.C., in 1970.
Stuart (BA English ’78, MA communication studies ’82) grew up in Gastonia, N.C.,
and like Tyson, is also a minister’s son. It’s not the kind of movie that the blockbuster
filmmaker, who brought “Die Hard,” “The Fugitive” and “Another 48 Hours” to the
screen, has typically been associated with in his professional life.
But a part of the book jumped out at Stuart, where Tyson speaks about “the two
Souths.” Stuart shared the book with his father, who acknowledged that he had been
through some of the same struggles as Vernon Tyson, Tim’s father.
“There was the South of Tim’s childhood, which closely mirrored mine,” Stuart
said. “At the same time, there’s the idea that a whole group of people grew up in the
same geographical space, but with totally different feelings about the same symbols
[like the Confederate flag.]”
And like Carolina alum Mike Wiley (MFA ’04), who is adapting the book for the
stage, Stuart also wanted to spotlight “some of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights
Movement,” people like North Carolina activists Eddie McCoy, Ben Chavis and Golden
Frinks.
“It was a rise of a very different type of civil rights in this country. Martin Luther
King is dead, Malcolm X is dead, and the movement had stopped moving forward in
places like Oxford,” said Stuart, the film’s writer and director. “But Ben Chavis and
others were able to unite a very divergent black community.”
Filming wrapped up on the independent movie in summer 2008 in and around
Shelby and Gastonia, N.C. Stuart’s wife, Mari, a Tony Award-winning theatrical
producer, will produce the film, which is being edited in Los Angeles.
Stuart said it’s tough to make an independent film, a little like “pushing water
up hill.”
“At the same time, it’s such a powerful story, that it keeps you motivated,” he
said. “It definitely gives you a reason to wake up in the morning.”
Stuart has been a loyal supporter of Carolina’s Writing for the Screen and Stage
Program. UNC student Jordan Harrell got a position through the University’s Hollywood
Interns Program, working on Stuart’s film in post-production in L.A.
So what advice would Stuart give to students who want to make it in this
business?
“The biggest thing I tell students is it doesn’t take long to learn the format of
screenwriting. It takes longer to have that life experience that will translate well into
film,” he said.
“Embrace life, take the most menial jobs, be constantly aware of the characters
around you, and work at your craft.” •
Online Extras
Read more about our conversation with Jeb Stuart, see Mike Wiley perform on
YouTube, and read more about Wiley’s work at http://college.unc.edu.
Vernon Tyson, Tim was 10 years old when
Marrow was murdered.
Serena Ebhardt, another Carolina
alum, will direct Wiley in “Blood Done
Sign My Name,” which will debut Nov.
6-9 at the Emma A. Sheafer Laboratory
Theater in Duke’s Bryan Center, then it will
become a part of Wiley’s touring repertoire.
Ebhardt (dramatic art ’88) and her husband
David zum Brunnen (RTVMP ’86) have
their own production company, EbzB
Productions.
“Mike could be very successful in com-mercial
theater on Broadway or in filmwork
in L.A., but those pieces would be cold
to him because he would just be speaking
words someone else wrote,” said Ebhardt.
“He performs with great passion, because it’s
not just rote. He’s living an integrated mis-sion
— his work is his life mission.”
Wiley has immersed himself fully in
writing the stage production of “Blood.”
He has delved into Tim Tyson’s audio
recordings, interview transcripts, court
records, newspaper clippings and notes about
the book, all now part of UNC’s Southern
Historical Collection. He has tape-recorded
interviews with Tim and Vernon Tyson,
activist Eddie McCoy and other people in
the book. Wiley also has traveled to Oxford
to visit Marrow’s grave and the site of the
country store where he was murdered.
Ray Dooley, head of UNC’s Profes-sional
Actor Training Program and one of
Wiley’s favorite Carolina professors, said he
uses Wiley as an example to inspire students.
“Mike is an artist in the best sense,
using his talent and training in service to
others,” Dooley said. “As Hamlet says, he
‘hold(s) the mirror up to nature,’ helping us
to see ourselves both individually and as a
society.”
Wiley has many hopes and dreams
for “Blood.” But perhaps the greatest is for
each audience member to think about his
place in the world, to impact, as the late poet
Thad Stem tells Tim Tyson, his own “little
postage stamp of soil.”
“I’d like each audience member to
walk away and reflect on who they are,
what they’ve done with their lives, how
they’ve helped, how they’ve contributed …
and how they can make their little postage
stamp of soil the best it can be.” •
…And another Alum Takes
Tim Tyson’s Memoir to the Big Screen
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
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Geeks
12 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
“ hat can I twist to my
purposes?” That may sound like a quote
from some maniacal movie villain, but
it’s the benign mantra of UNC computer
science professor Gary Bishop.
Engrossed earlier in his career with
such things as 3-D computer graphics and
six-dimensional tracking, Bishop spends
much of his time these days contemplating
how to adapt existing devices — preferably
cheap, simple, easily available devices — to
meet the needs of people with disabilities.
“Lots of assistive technology is very
expensive,” he explained. “I like to ask,
what can you do with things you can buy
at Amazon or Wal-Mart? What’s on the
Web, where you can distribute stuff for
free?” Though his mind generates possible
projects so quickly he uses part of his Web
site to track them, Bishop said he wants
“pull” — users with a particular problem to
solve — before he really dives into one.
His latest project, the Tar Heel
Reader Web site, lets children who might
not be able to manage a keyboard or hold
a book use switches to select and move
through easy-to-read online storybooks
that users create for them. The tales are told
through text, images gleaned online and
audio.
“It’s a very simple idea,” he said. “Kids
with severe disabilities often don’t talk and
can’t use their hands. So a kid will be 15
and hasn’t had the exposure to books that
a typical kid could have. When you can’t
talk and can’t write, it’s easy for people to
assume you’re profoundly retarded.”
Created in May in collaboration with
the Center for Literacy and Disability
Studies, Tar Heel Reader is a classic
example of Bishop doing something new
by the simplest means possible: he set
Tar Heel Reader up using the blogging
software WordPress. In large part because
it’s so easy to use, the project was an
immediate hit. Ten weeks after it was
launched, users from several countries
had created more than 400 titles in three
languages.
“Teachers are going completely
crazy with this thing,” Bishop said. They
have left online comments like, “This is
too fun.” And they’re making books on
all sorts of subjects for children of widely
ranging ages and interests.
For Bishop, the project embodies his
belief that he and his students should create
software and structure that empowers non-computer
users to make content.
“I don’t know what your student
wants to read,” he said. “So I have to get
out of the way and make it possible for you
to do it.”
“Tar Heel Reader is a great example
of democratizing innovation,” said Paul
Jones, director of ibiblio.org at UNC,
Computer science
profesor and students
invent gadgets for kids
with disabilities
B y K a t h l e e n K e a r n s Geeks Do Good
W
Issac Sandlin
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 13
which now hosts the project. “Gary saw a
new use [for existing software] and found
a community that would flock to that
solution and contribute to it.”
The element of collective creation
clearly energizes Bishop. When a teacher
wondered on the project’s blog whether
they could make a book, including the
audio portion, in Spanish, he looked into
it. “It turned out you could!” he said. He
found inexpensive commercial software
and got it working on the site. The teacher
went on to create several Spanish-language
books.
With Tar Heel Reader as with earlier
projects, Bishop and his students often
find solutions by modifying commercial
products that already exist, and they make
what they come up with available without
cost. They also regularly work with the
people their adaptations are intended to
help to make sure their innovations actually
do what their users want them to. Among
other things, this approach has helped
children with multiple disabilities use floor
pads from the popular video game Dance
Dance Revolution to control audio players
or to play educational games like one
Bishop and his team invented called Braille
Twister.
Bishop came to this work about seven
years ago, when a mid-life reassessment
coincided with a chance encounter.
“I was coming up on about 50 and
reflecting on my career,” he said, as he
thought about all the work he’d done
— “a bunch of patents, and papers, all the
usual stuff. I wanted to do something more
positive.”
The chance encounter was with Jason
Morris, then a graduate student in classics.
Morris, who is visually impaired, needed
better access to maps for his research, and
Bishop got his undergraduate students
working on the problem in collaboration
with the Ancient World Mapping Center.
The result evolved into the BATS (Blind
Audio Tactile Mapping System) project,
which lets users access maps through sound
and touch. A student who worked on it
told Bishop, “This is the first thing I’ve
done in college that matters.”
For Bishop himself, it was only the
beginning. Through Morris, he met a
teacher in the local schools who told him
that when classmates worked on computers
two or three times a week, blind children
had nothing to do. That spurred a project
called Hark the Sound, a set of sound-based
games that let children identify such
things as songs, food groups, even Wal-
Mart categories. (“You need to know
where to find the toothpaste in the store,”
Bishop pointed out.) The set-up isn’t
perfect — imagine an automated voice
tackling the name Lynyrd Skynyrd, for
instance — but it has been effective.
“Teachers tell me they have little guys
they haven’t been able to get to focus on
anything who’ll sit and play this game,”
Bishop reported with pleasure. As would
later be the case with Tar Heel Reader,
teachers took the model and created their
own games. A teacher in India wrote him
a letter in Braille to tell him how much her
students had gotten out of it. And a father
e-mailed him to say that because of a Hark
the Sound game, his daughter is probably
the only child in Britain who can name the
capitals of all the American states.
Once a year the computer science
department hosts Maze Day. Visually
impaired students in grades K-12 and their
parents and teachers visit the computer
science department to test the latest games
from Bishop and students.
Bishop is also among the first class
of four Faculty Engaged Scholars, who
are chosen by the Carolina Center for
Public Service and the Office of the
Vice Chancellor for Public Service and
Engagement to conduct projects that
connect faculty work with community
needs. With the help of a Kauffman
Faculty Fellowship, he is looking for
ways to sustain ongoing work developing
assistive technology.
Naturally, he’s got other ideas in the
hopper.
Bishop is working on a way for people
who can’t use a keyboard to enter text into
a Web browser. That way, they could send
e-mail, do their taxes, chat with friends,
watch videos on YouTube, write papers
for school. “By making one application
accessible to you, I’ll have opened up this
whole world of accessibility,” he said.
Bishop, who worked at Bell Labs
and Sun Microsystems between graduate
school at Carolina and his return in 1991
as a faculty member, jokes that he’d love to
make money with his innovations but can’t
figure out how. The tag line on his Web
site hints at a more likely motivation for his
work.
It reads, “Geeks making the world a
bit better.” •
Online Extras
Try out Tar Heel Reader, and
read more about Gary Bishop at
http://college.unc.edu.
LEFT: Computer science
professor Gary Bishop
describes how an adaptive
learning tool works.
BELOW: Bishop is in
the first class of Faculty
Engaged Scholars.
Dan Sears
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 15 9/11/08 4:34:59 PM
The Devil and
B y J B S h e l t o n
14 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
“The UNC job
is a miracle because
when I decided to
be a writer I assumed
I’d be poor forever.
There’s no reason in the
world why anyone should
make a living writing.
Writing is a struggle, and
has more to do with will
and desire than talent.”
Photo by Steve Exum; Illustration by Daniel Wallace
DThe eDveivl ial anndd DDaniel A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 16 9/11/08 4:35:06 PM
and
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 15
Writing at UNC, he played a distinguished
professor of economics in “Big Fish,” the
2003 Tim Burton fantasy film about a
father-son relationship, based on Wallace’s
first published novel. The role required
Wallace to shave his beard and drastically
trim his mustache; he may be the only
UNC professor pursued by a hairstylist on a
major motion picture set.
Nothing like a bestselling novel and
blockbuster movie to prevent a midlife
crisis. Wallace turns 50 in January 2009,
grateful for his first permanent job and able
to balance the writing career he values.
He’s come a long way from illustrating
refrigerator magnets and shelving volumes at
now defunct Franklin Street bookstores.
In his stories, Wallace tells tall tales from
his characters’ perspectives, recalling the
past, contemplating today, imagining the
future. He combines the literary stream-of-
consciousness of James Joyce with the
unique playfulness of characters having traits
both human and phantasmagorical.
• Writing 301: Creating the Backstory
In May 2008, Wallace graduated with
a BA in English from UNC-Chapel Hill, a
mere 30 years after he began his studies —
then promptly was appointed a distinguished
professor on July 1.
In his early 20s, Wallace joined the
family import/export business and worked
in Japan for three years before he resigned
or his dad fired him — an unresolved
family mystery. In the early ’80s, he moved
back to North Carolina, financially braving
the writing life, contemplating the eternal
verities within range of the Old Well.
His signature baseball cap shades a
Cheshire cat grin when he describes his wife
Laura, the love of his life, whom he first
encountered at Crooks Corner. He denies
having a muse, but said, “When I’m writing
about a beautiful woman, it’s Laura.”
Son Henry is 15, an avid reader of
his dad’s writings and believer in his dad’s
talents, but not necessarily in truths at family
dinner talks. He is the sole teen who can
most appropriately respond, “That sounds
like a ‘Big Fish’ story to me.”
• Writing 401: Love Being a Writer
Claire Williamson (journalism ’08)
twice played wordsmith in the creative
writing laugh factory run by DW, the
students’ nickname for the cool, Converse-wearing,
lauded author/teacher. “We tried
to be funny and insightful, with lofty hopes
of becoming His Favorite, a prize we sought
more than an A+,” said Williamson.
“Wow, I’m taking a class from the guy
who wrote Big Fish! Day one he made us
write about the worst thing we’ve ever done
— truth or lie. His creativity is unparalleled,
his imagination contagious,” recalled
Williamson. “What stuck with me most was
good storytellers must be good liars. DW’s
lie-telling comfort level makes him a fantastic
author, although I’d love to know whether
he actually crashed through a plate glass
window to save his mother-in-law.”
“I was taking myself and writing too
seriously,” she said. “He was the first person
to tell me it’s OK to write funny, insisting
it was my strength. Lifting the seriousness
burden made me love being a writer. He’s
funny — no, hilarious —critiquing and
encouraging us, while being unflinchingly
candid about his life and career.”
• Writing 501: Epilogue
And like the perfect ending to a good
story, Wallace is having a devil of a good
time. •
The J. Ross Macdonald Professorship honors
an emeritus distinguished professor of physics. The
professorship was funded via an estate gift in 1987
from Paul A. Johnston (B.A. ’50, J.D. ’52). The
39 Margaret and Paul A. Johnston Professorships
honor retired faculty members in the College.
Online Extras
Listen to an NPR interview with
Daniel Wallace at http://college.unc.edu.
With his newest novel, Daniel
Wallace entices readers into the eerie world
of Jeremiah Musgrove’s Chinese Circus in
Mr. Sebastian and The Negro Magician.
Right off, J.J. the Barker introduces
the magician of the title, Henry Walker,
as “a man who has met the devil himself
— the devil himself! — and come away with
Lucifer’s darkest secrets, secrets that were he
to tell would melt your very soul. But he
will show, not tell. And that is where the
magic lies.”
• Writing 101: Path and Flow
Wallace, who has taught creative
writing in UNC’s College of Arts and
Sciences for six years, believes “writing is
difficult and beautiful because every writer
must find his own path.”
“The UNC job is a miracle because
when I decided to be a writer I assumed I’d
be poor forever,” Wallace added. “There’s
no reason in the world why anyone should
make a living writing. Writing is a struggle,
and has more to do with will and desire than
talent.” The struggle, however, is certainly
mitigated by the rewards. “When I get in the
flow, hours pass like minutes. I love that.”
Wallace is self-disciplined in taking the
advice he gives to students: Write every day.
Let the words first come to mind, without
formality or sentence structure. Do away
with preconceived notions about what the
story will turn out to be. Surrender yourself
to 24-hour creative sprints.
He spends most mornings at his desk
and keeps several projects going at once.
Currently, he’s working on another novel,
a screenplay, more than one short story, and
he occasionally writes a new entry on his
blog at www.danielwallace.org. (Much to his
interviewer’s disappointment, he stubbornly
refuses to reveal the secrets to the magic
tricks posted on his Web site.)
• Writing 201: Get a Movie Deal
Before Wallace became the J. Ross
Macdonald Professor of English and Creative
anndd DDaniel aWnailelal ceWallace
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 17 9/11/08 4:35:09 PM
16 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
‘Going to the Show’
Historian chronicles N.C. movie-going
through new digital archive
B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8
Steve Exum
Historian Robert Allen at the
Carolina Theatre in Durham, N.C.
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 18 9/11/08 4:35:15 PM
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 17
ith DVDs available through
Netflix, Blockbuster and your local
supermarket, watching movies these days
often means staying home. Indeed, since
1991, Hollywood has been making more
money from people buying movies than
going to the theater, according to Robert
Allen, UNC’s James Logan Godfrey
Professor in American studies, history and
communication studies.
Today, “movies have become things
that we own, hold and control,” Allen said.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Going to the movies used to be a
very social experience. In many towns,
movie theaters were frequently the only
places where commercial entertainment
was presented on a regular basis. For many
people, which movie they saw was not as
important as the experience of going to the
theater. Allen, who has been studying popular
entertainment forms for more than 30 years,
is documenting the Southern movie-going
experience in the early 20th century — and
he’s using digital technology to study and
publicly share what he’s learning.
In a groundbreaking research project,
Allen is collaborating with digital publishing
experts and special collections archivists in
UNC’s Wilson Library to create an online,
interactive digital collection of maps, photos,
postcards, newspaper clippings, architectural
drawings, city directory listings and historical
commentary that will illuminate and
reconstruct cultural and social life in the first
three decades of the 20th century in North
Carolina. It will be the first statewide database
to document the experience of movie-going.
Allen was among only seven scholars
out of 110 to be awarded inaugural Digital
Humanities Fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The
project was recognized as an NEH “We the
People” project for promoting knowledge
and understanding of American history and
culture. It has also received grants from the
U.S. Library Services and Technology Act,
administered through the State Library of
North Carolina, as well as support from
UNC’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for
Research and the University Program in
Cultural Studies.
The project, “Going to the Show,”
will also highlight the complex relationships
among race, space
and movie culture by
shining a spotlight on the
African-American movie-going
experience. Racial
“intermixing” in movie
theaters was prevented by
architectural and admission
policies enforced by all-white
theaters in North Carolina for
more than 60 years. In some
communities, separate movie theaters were
operated for African-Americans. “Going to
the Show” will include the first statewide
inventory of African-American movie
theaters from the 1910s through the 1950s.
“We’re looking very specifically at the
ways in which race not only conditioned
the experience of movie-going for all North
Carolinians, but how race conditioned the
experience of urban life,” said Allen, who has
been teaching at Carolina since 1979. “Race
was a factor in people’s lives and identities
that was magnified enormously when they
went downtown, because downtowns were
the place where the maintenance of racial
power was the most intensely emphasized.”
“Going to the Show” will be part
of Documenting the American South
(DocSouth), a UNC digital archive begun in
1995 that provides free online access to texts,
images and audio files related to southern
history, literature and culture. Currently
DocSouth includes 11 thematic collections
of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters,
oral history interviews and songs. DocSouth
is a project of the Carolina Digital Library
and Archives (CDLA), which is housed on
the first floor of Wilson Library. The new
“Going to the Show” collection, which will
cover the period 1896 to 1930, is slated to
debut in late 2008-early 2009.
Natasha Smith, head of DocSouth and
CDLA digital publishing and the project
director for “Going to the Show,” envisions
that the archive, which will include an
inventory of more than 1,000 movie theaters,
will attract new users to DocSouth.
“When I met with Bobby to talk about
his vision, it really clicked. What appealed
to me was the topic of movie-going,” she
said. “I also thought that we could use the
framework and infrastructure of this project
for other scholars’ research and teaching.”
Allen turned to UNC Libraries’ North
Carolina Collection — the largest collection
of published materials about a state in the
country — and the Southern Historical
Collection — the largest manuscript
collection about the South — where he
found a unique array of resources that initially
had absolutely nothing to do with movies.
The North Carolina Collection has a
comprehensive archive of N.C. Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps for the period 1896 to 1922.
These large-scale color map sets, produced
at about five-year intervals for more than
100 towns and cities in the state, represented
every building in the central business districts,
including dimensions, building materials and
uses. The Sanborn maps also coded building
use by race; movie theaters operated for
African-Americans were noted as “colored”
theaters.
“Urban historians know the Sanborn
maps very well; they’re a valuable tool,” Allen
said. “I went back to the first article that I had
ever written on movie-going in New York
City published in 1979, and it’s the first place
I cited a Sanborn Map as a reference.”
Allen, who will also be writing a
monograph on “Going to the Show,”
recalled how difficult it used to be to make
the maps easily accessible to a broad audience.
“I remember having to go to a Library
of Congress map storage facility in Alexandria,
Va., and take 35 millimeter pictures of the
maps standing on a chair,” he said.
Through his work with digital librarians
and graduate students in UNC’s School of
Information and Library Science (SILS), Allen
and a project team will make many of the
Sanborn maps accessible online.
They are digitizing some 750 Sanborn
maps for 45 towns and cities in North
Carolina. The multiple map pages for each
continued
This postcard shows a movie
screen in the surf at Lumina in Wrightsville Beach.
W
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 19 9/11/08 4:35:24 PM
18 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
city are being digitally “stitched” together,
forming a composite image of a town at a
particular moment in its history. The maps
will then be “geo-referenced,” so that users
may overlay a Sanborn map via Google
Earth onto an up-to-date satellite image
for contemporary views of a particular city
or town. Users can toggle back and forth
between an old Sanborn map and a current
view of a city.
“Digitizing and geo-referencing of
these maps gives a prismatic quality to the
project: The spatial data we’re using for
our movie-going project can also make
visible other aspects of social, cultural and
economic history,” Allen said.
Kevin Eckhardt, a research assistant
on the project, is a second-year graduate
student in SILS who developed the digital
map-stitching technique.
“We have had to look at all the
puzzle pieces and put things together. This
sometimes includes having to identify and
locate streets that have disappeared or whose
names have changed,” Eckhardt said.
Because Wilmington was the largest
city in North Carolina at the time, and
also featured the first movie theater — the
Bijou, which opened in 1906 — the project
will focus on the city as a case study. Allen
found a treasure trove of materials, five
boxes of newspaper clippings on movie
theaters, which are part of the Bill Reaves
Collection of the New Hanover County
Public Library. He’s been combing through
the boxes, and finding clippings to use in
the archive, like an advertisement for The
Odeon, the second movie theater to open
in Wilmington four months after the Bijou.
The Odeon boasted: “New White Moving
Picture Theater Now Open.”
Beverly Tetterton, special collections
librarian at the New Hanover County
Public Library, first introduced Allen to the
Bill Reaves collection.
“Bill was a local historian who worked
for the Wilmington Morning Star, and they
were getting rid of their bound newspapers,
back to 1867,” she said. “Bill was instructed
to take them to the dump, so he had them
taken to his house on Third Street, where
he clipped newspapers for more than 25
years. Upon Bill’s passing, he gave the entire
collection to the library.”
Allen also used the North Carolina
Collection’s massive
archive of city directories
to compile historical
information for the
project. The unique
database of movie
exhibition sites was
initially compiled
two years ago from
information about
theater names,
addresses, owner-ship,
management
and racial orienta-tion
contained
in hundreds of
city directories
published between 1896 and 1930. In
the last year, the UNC Libraries’ Digital
Production Center has acquired a new
machine called the Scribe that can digitize
hundreds of book pages per hour. City
directories for N.C. towns and cities were
selected to be among the first volumes to
be digitized, and “Going to the Show” will
benefit from this new electronic resource.
Frank O’Hale first used the North
Carolina Collection in the fall of 2007 as
a student in Allen’s First Year Seminar on
family history and social change in America.
In the summer, he combed through 8,000
postcards in the North Carolina Collection
for photos showing early 20th century
movie theaters and the streets on which they
were located. Two more of Allen’s students
searched through newspapers from the
early 20th century for articles and ads about
early movie theaters. There’s a postcard, for
instance, of Lumina, an outdoor pavilion in
Wrightsville Beach, N.C., which showed
motion pictures in the ocean — via a large
outdoor movie screen erected in the surf.
The photos will also be geo-referenced and
linked to the Sanborn map pages.
In some respects the project is forging
its own path in the frontier of digital
humanities. Sanborn maps have been
employed in other historical projects, but
“Going to the Show” is among the first
projects to present geo-referenced Sanborn
maps online, and it is developing one of
the most innovative representations of
historic maps in North Carolina. No other
project has brought together photographs,
newspapers, city directories, Sanborn
maps and other
sources to document
the way movie-going
became one of the most
important social practices
of the early 20th century.
Allen and the digital project
team are still designing
the look of the final digital
collection. They want to
try to build in a “tell us your
story” link on each page so
that users can add their own
recollections of movie-going.
The team is also working
on ways to reflect the fact that,
particularly in the time period
covered by the project, movie-going often
included music and other forms of live
entertainment as well. And as the largest
secular meeting place in many small towns,
movie theaters often hosted high school
graduations, local beauty pageants, religious
services, talent shows and other events.
In partnership with UNC’s School of
Education, Allen and the project team will
also develop learning materials for North
Carolina K-12 classrooms. Lessons will
provide teachers and students with a better
understanding of the social climate of the
South during this era.
Allen said that his first foray into digital
research and publication has been one of the
most gratifying and exciting experiences of
his career.
“When a book is published, it’s
finished, but when you produce a Web
site, it’s the beginning of an open-ended
exchange with tens of thousands of people
around the world,” he said. “Academic
books have a fairly limited reach. I don’t go
to too many airport bookstores and see my
books.”
“This project will be used by the
87-year-old woman in Benson, N.C.,
who remembers going to the movie theater
there and by a scholar who’s been
researching movie-going in Beijing,
China, for 30 years.” •
Online Extras
Read more about Allen’s own movie-going
experience, and hear him discuss the
project. More on the Bijou Theater and
DocSouth — all at http://college.unc.edu.
The Bijou Theater
(circa 1912) in Wilmington.
Profile
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 20 9/11/08 4:35:34 PM
Southern
Culture Calling
John Hubbell helps to
shape new museums
honoring B.B. King
and Earl Scruggs
By Pamela Babcock
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 19
Growing up in the San Francisco
Bay area in the early 1980s, John Hubbell
and his best friend, Craig Brewer, a
filmmaker today best known as director of
“Hustle & Flow,” listened to all kinds of
music — from Muddy Waters to Prince.
“We were into everything,” Hubbell
recalled.
Unlike other kids, Hubbell couldn’t
just listen to ZZ Top. When he found
out the trio hailed from Texas, he openly
wondered: What’s informing these guys
and how did this oddity manifest? Likewise,
he didn’t have to dig far to learn that Waters
and so many great Southern bluesmen had
influenced The Rolling Stones.
“It was that classic inquisitive kid-in-
the record store thing,” Hubbell said.
“Craig and I both heard [Water’s] ‘Mannish
Boy’ and were marveled by it. As aspiring
writers, I think we both knew we were
tapping the root as we listened.”
These days, Hubbell is continuing
to tap the root and his abiding interest
in Southern culture. After a decade-long
career as a newspaper journalist, Hubbell
got an M.A. in folklore in 2007 from
Carolina and today runs Old Bridge Media,
a Memphis, Tenn., writing, editing and
production firm.
Hubbell is a consultant to the new
B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive
Center in Indianola, Miss. He helped write
and shape the text visitors will read as well
as interactive exhibits, documentaries,
education programs and Web-based
material. Closer to Carolina, Hubbell is
working with UNC’s Center for the Study
of the American South on the planned Earl
Scruggs Center in Shelby, N.C.
“John really is a unique person because
he is a very gifted writer, and he’s also very
knowledgeable about the American South
and its cultural traditions,” said Bill Ferris,
senior associate director of the Center, the
Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of
History and Hubbell’s thesis adviser. Those
traits make Hubbell an ideal resource for
both projects, he added.
“He is able to capture the spirit of
both those types of music — blues and
bluegrass — in ways that are accessible to
the American public.”
Growing up in Vallejo, Calif., Hubbell
always knew he’d be a journalist and said
“writing was always my passport.”
Armed with a journalism degree from
California Polytechnic State University in
1996, Hubbell moved to Memphis to work
as a reporter and later was managing editor
for The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus,
Miss.
After a brief stint at Microsoft, Hubbell
landed at The Associated Press in 1998,
most recently as editor on the national
desk in New York. In 2000, Hubbell
began a five-year stint at the San Francisco
Chronicle, where he covered Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Hubbell learned pretty quickly that
he didn’t want to spend his life covering
politics. And that’s when Carolina
beckoned.
“Being in the folklore program really
helped me see how I could take my career
in a new direction,” said Hubbell, whose
coursework emphasized Southern music
and regional vernacular traditions.
As a consultant on the King Museum,
Hubbell conducted interviews for
documentaries, went on film shoots and
met King twice. The museum focuses
on King’s life and stories of the Delta,
including its history and music, social
mores and race relations, and literature and
legends.
“He’s very funny and has an amazing
love for people that really shines through in
a way that I don’t know many people have,
let alone celebrities of that stature,” Hubbell
said of King.
“We try, whenever possible, to tell
the story from B.B.’s voice or the voices in
the community,” he added. “That’s what
folklore is about — everyday people and
their stories.”
Hubbell’s business is based in his
home, an old bungalow in mid-town
Memphis. His office walls are lined with
quotes from people he’s interviewed over
the years.
In addition to being a New York Times
contributor, Hubbell is also working on
Patch My Heart, a book about John Gary
Williams, the lead singer of the defunct soul
group “The Mad Lads.”
“The important thing about doing
this work is that you are the conduit and
you enable stories to be told,” Hubbell said.
“It’s about shining light where it needs to
shine — and helping people appreciate the
reality and the wholeness of people.” •
Online Extras
Read more about John Hubbell and
the B.B. King and Earl Scruggs Museums at
http://college.unc.edu.
Alan Spearman
ABOVE: John Hubbell
(left) chats with blues
legend B.B. King.
LEFT: John Hubbell at
a saloon in Memphis
favored by musicians.
Profile P r o f i l e
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 21 9/11/08 4:35:39 PM
Highlights
best. With this professorship, I hope to
inspire the next generation of writers to
embrace that purpose.”
Shuping-Russell, managing director
at the investment firm BlackRock in New
York City, is a member of the UNC
Board of Trustees, the UNC Foundation
Investment Fund Co. Board of Directors
and a former member of the Board of
Directors of UNC Health Care. She earned
a bachelor’s degree in English and political
science at Carolina in 1977 and holds a
master’s in business administration from
Columbia University.
The gift was made on
July 1, 2008, the first day
of the new administration
of Chancellor Holden
Thorp, former dean of
the College of Arts and
Sciences.
“This gift gets my
job as chancellor off to a
great start, and I’ll always
feel a special gratitude to
Sallie,” said Thorp. “The
rigorous program and
intimate engagement with
faculty in creative writing
embody the commitments
to originality and
undergraduate experience that define
Carolina. Sallie’s gift shows not only her
extraordinary generosity, but also her
understanding of our deepest values.”
The “Living Writers” course will be
the Creative Writing Program’s first and
only semester-length class arranged entirely
around a series of visiting writers and their
works, making it “a model for the study
and practice of contemporary literature,”
said Michael McFee, director and professor
of creative writing at Carolina.
“This kind of close contact with
authors, especially when students are
A major gift to the College of Arts
and Sciences will enable creative writing
students to study with some of the nation’s
most notable writers.
The gift from Sallie Shuping-Russell
of Chapel Hill will fund an innovative
new course featuring the work of active
writers who will hold a distinguished
visiting professorship within the Creative
Writing Program. The program is part of
the department of English and comparative
literature.
The $666,000 gift qualifies for a
$334,000 grant from
the North Carolina
Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust,
bringing its total value
to $1 million. The state
fund, established in 1985
by the N.C. General
Assembly, provides
matching grants to recruit
and retain outstanding
faculty.
The gift will create
the Sallie Shuping-
Russell Distinguished
Visiting Professorship.
Starting in the fall
of 2009, five to six
outstanding writers will come to campus
to participate in the regularly scheduled
course, “Living Writers,” which will honor
her mother, Margaret R. Shuping, who
graduated from UNC in 1944 with a
degree in journalism. The visiting professors
also will give public readings for the
University community.
“My career has been spent financing
new technologies,” Shuping-Russell said.
“However, as science rolls forward, I want
to make sure we don’t lose sight of the
human experience of dealing with life in
these times. That is what literature does
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
familiar with their work, gives young writers
the chance to have extended conversations
with those practicing the art and craft to
which they aspire,” McFee said.
The course also will further UNC’s
overall mission to give students a liberal arts
education, Shuping-Russell said.
“The Creative Writing Program
at Carolina is unique in its focus within
undergraduate studies,” she said. “It allows
the University to be a leader in interpreting
the human condition as other parts of the
institution unfold the genetic structure of
our being.”
“With today’s rapid scientific
discovery, our literary capacity has to
maintain its pace. It is my hope that this gift
will help secure this important mission for
Carolina.”
Shuping-Russell’s gift builds on several
other privately funded programs in creative
writing at Carolina. These include the
Thomas Wolfe Scholarship, the Blanche
Britt Armfield Poetry Series, the Morgan
Writer-in-Residence Program, the Doris
Betts Distinguished Professorship and other
resources that have enabled the Creative
Writing Program to bring a wide range
of writers to campus to interact with
undergraduate students and the community.
“We in creative writing are
extraordinarily grateful to Sallie Shuping-
Russell,” McFee said. “This is a terrific
opportunity for us and for Carolina.” •
20 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
ABOVE: Sallie Shuping-Russell
Living Writers
Creative writing students to study with
visiting authors thanks to major gift
By Scott Ragland ’87
“With today’s rapid
scientific discovery,
our literary capacity
has to maintain its pace.
It is my hope that this
gift will help secure this
important mission
[ for Carolina.�� ]
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 22 9/11/08 4:35:46 PM
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 21
Pizza will never look the same to
students in the Honors course they call
“Eats 101.”
For Catherine Williams, it was the best
class she took at Carolina.
“It was a great example of what an
Honors course ought to do. It brought
together so many academic disciplines
— health and nutrition, archaeology and
environmental history, anthropology and
economics — that it was truly impossible
not to engage with some part of the
syllabus,” said Williams, of Matthews, N.C.,
who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in May
2008.
Now, twice as many first-year
students, or 10 percent of each entering
class, will have the chance to take similarly
engaging courses, and join one of the
nation’s top Honors programs.
Four major gifts in the past year
totaling $21.5 million — including state
matches from the Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust — will enable the
Honors Program in the College of Arts and
Sciences to invite nearly 400 students in the
Class of 2012 to participate. The gifts fund
faculty positions in high-priority areas of
the College to teach Honors courses. They
also will increase the University’s yield of
high-ability students, many of whom are
attracted to Carolina because of the Honors
Program.
In July, the Hyde Family Foundations,
with support from Pitt ’65 and Barbara ’83
Hyde, made a $2 million capstone gift to
complete the goal of doubling first-year
invitations to the Honors Program. Two
months earlier, the William R. Kenan Jr.
Charitable Trust made a $6 million gift
to create six $1.5 million endowments,
including $500,000 in state matches
for each, to support a minimum of six
assistant or associate professors who will
be designated as William R. Kenan Jr.
Seeing Double
New gifts enable Honors to invite twice
as many first-year students to program
By Del Helton
Fellows or William
R. Kenan Jr. Scholars.
The Morehead-
Cain Foundation
in December 2007
created the Mary H.
Cain Distinguished
Professorship in
Art History, resulting in a $2 million
endowment, including state match, that
will add four Honors courses in art history.
In September 2007, an anonymous
donor gave $5 million to fund five new
professorships named for alumni Peter T.
Grauer and William B. Harrison.
For the Kenan Trust, the gift served
to recognize past and present chancellors.
“This gift reflects the desire of the
Kenan Trust to pay tribute to Chancellor
Moeser for the leadership he has provided
to Carolina over the past eight years, and
to his desire to double the number of
participants in the Honors Program,” said
Richard M. Krasno, executive director of
the Kenan Trust. “We also want to signal
our confidence in Chancellor Thorp, who
has been a tremendous champion for the
Honors Program as dean of the College
of Arts and Sciences. These are two great
leaders for the University, and we are
proud that this gift honors them both.”
The Hyde Family Foundations’ gift
creates two $1.5 million endowments,
each augmented by the state match of
$500,000, and will support a minimum of
two assistant or associate professors in the
College.
“In response to Chancellor Moeser’s
challenge to trustees to help him complete
the goal of doubling the Honors Program,
and in honor of Chancellor [Holden]
Thorp, we are thrilled to support the
expansion of the Honors Program and
follow the leadership of the Kenan Trust,”
said Barbara Hyde, president of the J.R.
Hyde Family Foundation of Memphis,
Tenn. Hyde serves on the University’s
Board of Trustees. “We believe the gift
to Honors is a great complement to our
support of faculty through the Institute for
the Arts and Humanities. As Chancellor
Thorp recently said, ‘Carolina is the best
place to teach, discover and learn.’ We hope
this gift helps faculty and students do all
three.”
Joshua Knobe, assistant professor of
philosophy, recalled at least two inspired
students from his Honors classes. One
student was so enthused about a class
discussion on the concept of eudaimonia
(state of happiness and well-being), that he
wrote a rock song about it.
“Another student in my Honors class
became so intrigued with the subject of
moral cognition, or how people make
judgments, that he developed his own
hypothesis, then applied to work as a
researcher. It was a pretty advanced topic for
a first-year student.”
Knobe said he can often let Honors
students guide discussions, a practice that
worked well for Williams and her classmates
in the social sciences Honors course.
“Dr. [Jim] Ferguson taught us to
take notice of the rich informational
environment we live in by sending us news
stories and anecdotes that related to our
studies,” said Williams. “The 14 of us in the
class really became a family, and all of us felt
comfortable to explore the subject in our
own way, something that no other class has
done for me.” •
ABOVE: New gifts will enable twice as many first-year students to join Honors.
Dan Sears
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 23 9/11/08 4:35:56 PM
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Highlights
22 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
professor of political science at the
University of Missouri-St. Louis.
When he was a graduate student
in political science at UNC, Uhlman’s
studies were supported by a National
Science Foundation fellowship. Now as
a board member of the Arts and Sciences
Foundation, Uhlman understands the
importance of financial support for
graduate students. Fellowships and other
forms of support are often the determining
factor in a graduate student’s decision to
study at
Carolina.
“There
is a market-place
out
there for
the best
talent in graduate schools, and the best
students have the most choices,” Uhlman
said. “Every department would like to
attract the strongest entering class of
students.”
Uhlman has pledged $1 million
to the College of Arts and Sciences to
support graduate students in political
science through The Thomas M. Uhlman
Graduate Fund in Political Science. The
endowed fund will have a wide-ranging
impact by supporting “three legs of the
stool”: graduate fellowships, summer
research fellowships and travel awards.
Recipients will be selected through a
competitive process, with a minimum of
15 awards given each year beginning in
2009-2010.
Uhlman said it was important to him
not only to support fellowships, but also
summer research and opportunities for
students to travel to present their research
at conferences.
“As a graduate student, I don’t think
I ever traveled to a professional meeting to
present my research, so I’m trying to create
Tom Uhlman has founded companies,
managed a presidential commission, led a
major effort at the U.S. Department of Edu-cation
and been a university professor.
He credits his time at Carolina, where
he earned double degrees in political science
(a master’s in 1971 and a doctorate in 1975)
with helping him to meet all the different
challenges in his career.
“Carolina was really where I came of
age intellectually. It was a very challenging
environment, but at the same time
supportive,
which was
great,” said
Uhlman of
Madison,
N.J., who is a
founder and
managing partner of New Venture Partners
LLC. “My education was a wonderful
platform for me in my career, which has
led off in a number of different directions. I
always felt well-prepared. [At UNC], I got a
set of general tools and skills to think about
problems, to work with complex issues and
to be confident I could ask questions and
come up with the right course of action.”
Uhlman, who also has a master’s in
business from Stanford University, has
held corporate, government and academic
positions. Prior to starting New Venture
Partners, an early stage technology-focused
venture capital firm, he served as president
of Lucent Technologies’ New Ventures
Group from 1997-2001. Uhlman and his
colleagues have created more than 50 new
technology businesses since 1997.
In 1983-84, Uhlman managed the
President’s Commission on Industrial
Competitiveness on behalf of the CEO
of Hewlett-Packard. In 1981-82, he was
director of productivity improvement at
the U.S. Department of Education. And
he spent time as an assistant and associate
a menu of opportunities that the department
and the director of graduate studies can
select from to award to students,” he said.
“Graduate students are an indispensable
part of an excellent department. They
inspire and help faculty in their research,
and at UNC they play an integral role in
the education of undergraduates,” said
Evelyne Huber, chair of the political science
department. “The impact of Tom Uhlman’s
gift will be both broad and deep, reaching
roughly a quarter of our graduate students
each year, or the overwhelming majority of
our graduate students at some point during
their course of study.”
The political science department will
also host an Uhlman Symposium each
academic year, where recipients of the three
types of Uhlman awards will present their
research.
“The symposium is an intellectual,
social and team-building exercise that will
enable the students to get in front of their
peers and explain their work,” Uhlman said.
Uhlman said his support of graduate
students in political science is a “way of
giving back to the institution that has meant
so much to me.”
“Many times people have asked
me, ‘How did it work out going from
political science to venture capital to
heading a presidential commission?’ A lot
of it I attribute to the intellectual rigor and
problem-solving I experienced at UNC.” •
Triple Impact for Political Science
$1 million gift supports graduate fellowships,
research and travel awards
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
“There is a marketplace out there for the best talent
in graduate schools, and the best students have the
most choices. Every department would like to attract
the strongest entering class of students.”
{ — Tom Uhlman }
ABOVE: Tom Uhlman
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 23
In the 1940s, it was the newest, biggest,
most technologically advanced bomber ever
commissioned by the U.S. Army Air Force
— the B-29 Superfortress. Many men were
afraid to fly it: Pilots oohed and aahed at its
size, but shied away from the cockpit of a
plane notorious for engine fires.
In what became aviation history,
then-Colonel Paul Tibbets — eventual
captain of the B-29 Enola Gay — trained
two Women’s Airforce Service Pilots to fly
demonstration tours on the Superfortress.
One-by-one, senior pilots signed on while a
young flyboy from eastern North Carolina
eagerly waited his turn — John Randolph
“J.R.” Parker.
From the marshes of New Bern by way
of Carolina’s Class of ’38 and West Point,
J.R. Parker left the Army Air Force without
deployment on the B-29, but the training
stuck. He joined multi-national Fluor
Corporation as a mechanical engineer for
oil rigs, putting to use his pilot
training and an education in
math, physics and engineering
earned at Carolina. Though
Parker left the University
before graduation, his love for
the school stayed with him
throughout a life lived in the
far corners of the world.
“He was so dedicated to Carolina that
sometimes I thought it was an obsession
with him,” said Ed Duer of Oriental, N.C.,
a long-time friend and executor of J.R.
and Louise Parker’s estate — an estate that
recently created the John R. and Louise
S. Parker Distinguished Professorships in
physics, mathematics and computer science
in the College of Arts and Sciences. Each
professorship was funded with a gift of
about $1,333,000, and will be matched
with $667,000 in grants from the state’s
Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust
Fund, creating a $2 million endowment
One Pilot’s Legacy
Parker estate creates three
$2 million professorships
By Chrys Bullard ’76
for each of the three
professorships.
Bruce Carney,
interim dean of the
College and Samuel
Baron Professor of
Astronomy, expressed
deep gratitude for the
Parkers’ gift on behalf of his colleagues.
“These new professorships come at a
most opportune time,” Carney said. “The
combination of the Parker professorships
and the world-class facilities within our
new science complex will help us attract
the very best faculty. We have already
been fortunate to attract our first Parker
professor, John F. Wilkerson, former
professor of physics and associate vice
provost for research at the University of
Washington. He will lead a new, large
research effort at the interface of neutrino
physics and cosmology.”
With the passion of a true-blue Tar
Heel, the discipline of a pilot and the focus
of an engineer, J.R. Parker, and his wife
Louise, gave to two Carolina institutions
throughout their lifetimes: the University
Library and the College of Arts and
Sciences. On the advice of their financial
adviser and working with Michele
Fletcher, director of development for the
University Library, and June Steel, former
director of planned and regional gifts in the
Office of University Development (now
associate vice chancellor of advancement
services), the Parkers transferred Fluor
Corporation stock to Carolina’s pooled
income fund, received quarterly income
for life and avoided capital gains taxes.
Another outright gift of Fluor stock created
the professorships fund. During the Parkers’
lifetimes, income from the fund benefited
the University Library, but after their deaths
— J.R. in 2002 and Louise in 2007 — the
gift reverted to the College of Arts and
Sciences along with the bulk of their estate.
“[J.R.] loved the University, and
he loved mathematics, physics and
engineering,” said Duer, who with his wife,
Lee, took care of the Parkers during their
final illnesses. “He tutored math students at
Carolina to help pay his college
expenses, and I’m sure that’s
why he chose to make the gifts
he did.”
Duer describes J.R. as, “a
magnificent person — very
principled, with a marvelous
sense of humor.” After he
and Louise retired to Oriental, J.R. put
his engineering skills and sense of humor
to work building complex but humane
squirrel traps. “When he caught one,” Duer
said, “he’d paint its tail red, carry it miles
from his house and turn it loose.”
During their long friendship, Duer
grew to understand the Parkers’ special
affection for Carolina. He met Fletcher,
Steel and later Associate Director of Gift
Planning Candace Clark.
“The care [the Parkers] received from
everyone, their exceptional interest in J.R.
and Louise … There’s a feeling of family at
UNC. A closely knit family.” •
ABOVE: The late Louise (left) and J.R. Parker
With the passion of a true-blue Tar Heel,
the discipline of a pilot and the focus of an engineer,
J.R. Parker, and his wife Louise, gave to two Carolina
institutions throughout their lifetimes: the University
Library and the College of Arts and Sciences. ( )
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 25 9/11/08 4:36:05 PM
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Jewish studies
professorship
named for Eizenstat
A $1.5 million distinguished
professorship in Jewish studies will be
named in honor of alumnus Stuart E.
Eizenstat, who served as the lead negotiator
for Holocaust reparation agreements and
deputy secretary of the treasury during the
Clinton administration.
The Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Distinguished Professorship in Jewish History
and Culture will be in the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies in the College. David
M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group in
Washington, D.C., has pledged $500,000 to help establish the professorship.
In addition to the Rubenstein gift, the professorship is being funded by
additional contributions totaling more than $500,000 from private donors, and
it will be eligible for $500,000 in matching funds from the N.C. Distinguished
Professors Endowment Trust Fund.
Eizenstat helped acquire more than $8 billion in compensation from
European companies for victims of the Holocaust and Nazi era.
Rubenstein was deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during
the Carter administration, when Eizenstat served as chief domestic policy adviser
and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff.
Eizenstat graduated from UNC in 1964 Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude
with a degree in political science. He also received an honorary degree from
the University and was the commencement speaker in 2000. He is currently a
partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm, Covington and Burling LLP. •
German doctoral students on
campus may soon be wearing both Duke
and Carolina blue.
UNC and Duke University will
combine their German doctoral program,
beginning in fall 2009.
The unique program, conceived and
proposed by faculty, will be called the
Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in
German Studies. Doctoral students will
apply to a single program, take courses at
both UNC and Duke, and their degrees
will come from both universities.
The new merged graduate program will
draw on one of the largest German studies
faculty in the country and the considerable
intellectual, educational and cultural resources
of both institutions — amid national reports
that some German language programs
around the country are shutting down.
The 16 core German studies faculty
will represent all branches of research in the
field. Admission will be competitive and is
limited to about seven students per year.
“The new joint program will do more
than combine the forces of two excellent
departments,” said Clayton Koelb, chair of
the German Languages department. “It
will create a new enterprise able to offer
students resources and opportunities that
neither institution alone could provide.”
Undergraduate German programs at
the two schools will continue to remain
separate. •
Stuart E. Eizenstat
Dan Sears
Examining diversity,
conformity in
Muslim societies
A historian and a geographer
are teaming up to study diversity and
conformity in Muslim societies through
a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation.
There are substantial variations
among Muslims, their politics and
even their religious practices, say Sarah
Shields, an associate professor of history,
and Banu
Gökariksel, an
assistant professor
of geography.
Often, however,
scholars and
policymakers
portray a
uniform “Islam.”
Through a
$150,000 Mellon
grant, the UNC
researchers will
develop an
interdisciplinary
“Sawyer Seminar” series in 2009-
2010 that will explore the tensions
between diversity and conformity,
between tolerance and orthodoxy, in
Muslim societies. The seminars will
include faculty and students from all
of the Triangle universities and other
N.C. schools, drawing from scholars
who study history, politics, music, art,
architecture, religion and law. Shields
and Gökariksel hope that this broad,
inclusive approach will result in a richer,
multi-dimensional understanding of
Muslim societies.
The grant will also support a post-doctoral
researcher to spend a year at
UNC, and it will fund two graduate
students’ doctoral research for the year.
It will provide funding to bring outside
scholars to participate in workshops
during the seminar year. •
Sarah Shields
Highlights
24 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Duke, UNC join forces in german
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 25
Genetics plus social factors
linked to teen violence
Sociologists exploring the link between adolescent delinquen-cy
and genetics have identified three genes that appear to play a role
in whether a child becomes involved in serious and violent crime.
What’s more, the impact those genes have appears to be
triggered or suppressed by social influences such as family, friends
and school.
Research led by UNC sociologist Guang Guo,
one of the first to link molecular genetic variants to
adolescent delinquency, sheds light on why some
individuals become serious and violent delinquents
— while others with a similar genetic makeup do not.
The study, co-authored by UNC doctoral students
Michael Roettger and Tianji Cai, was published in
American Sociological Review.
Previous behavioral studies examining gene-environment
interactions have looked at the
relationship of genes to a single factor such as child
abuse or stress. Here, UNC researchers systematically
examined several layers of social context, such as family
dynamics, peer relations and school-related variables.
“Positive social influences appear to reduce the delinquency-increasing
effect of a genetic variant, whereas the effect of these
genetic variants is amplified in the absence of social controls,” said
Guo, who is also a faculty fellow at the UNC Carolina Population
Center and the Carolina Center for Genomic Sciences.
“Our research confirms that genetic effects are not
deterministic,” Guo said. “Gene expression may depend heavily
on the environment.” •
UNC technology Enrolled in
hunt for life on Mars
Scientists looking for evidence of life on Mars are relying on
technology invented by UNC researchers.
A team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., has created a device for use on the European ExoMars
Rover mission scheduled for launch in 2013.
The microfluidic or “lab-on-a-chip” device — which takes
its name from the fact that the credit-card
sized invention can perform multiple detailed
laboratory tests — could be used to analyze
Martian soil and rock for traces of biological
compounds.
But until they turned to materials called
perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs), which were first
pioneered for use in the field of microfluidics
by UNC chemist Joseph DeSimone (see
page 3) and his colleagues, the NASA team
was having trouble making a chip that could
withstand the rigors of the proposed mission.
Jason Rolland, who helped invent PFPE
materials for microfluidic devices when he
was a graduate student in DeSimone’s lab, said the devices can handle
very small volumes of liquids through tiny channels, and are similar to
microelectronic chips.
“It turned out that the material fit right into the sweet spot
of what NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed to enable this
device to work,” said Rolland, co-founder and director of research
and development at Liquidia Technologies, a company which
licensed the technology from UNC. •
Islands.” The volcanic islands are
world renowned for their scientific
importance, as exemplified by the
giant tortoises, marine iguanas and
Darwin finches whose existence vividly
illustrate the mechanisms of evolution.
UNC geographer Stephen Walsh
has conducted research on the islands
for the past few years, along with his
former Ph.D. student, Carlos Mena,
who’s now on the faculty of the
University of San Francisco Quito
(USFQ), a private university in Ecuador.
They collaborate with doctoral students
and faculty at UNC, USFQ and in the
Galapagos Islands.
Walsh and a UNC delegation traveled
to the Galapagos Islands in February
to discuss further opportunities for
collaboration with USFQ, the Galapagos
National Park and the Charles Darwin
Research Station. Carolina faculty and
administrators visited Isabela Island, where
invasive species of plants and animals
are displacing native and endemic flora
and fauna, and increasing tourism and
immigration have begun to threaten
this vulnerable ecosystem. Scientists are
hoping new research can help preserve the
islands’ fragile ecosystems and mediate the
conflicts between resource conservation and
economic development.
“The opportunity exists for UNC to
lead an interdisciplinary initiative that will
emphasize research, education and outreach
programs to address issues compelling to
science and society,” said Walsh. “Carolina
can make an important and lasting impact on
the Galapagos archipelago, the region and
the world.” •
Located about 600 miles off the
coast of mainland Ecuador, the Galapagos
Islands are a living laboratory for studying
evolution, global environmental change,
and the conflicts between nature and
society.
There’s good reason why the
Galapagos are often called the “Enchanted
Guarding the
Galapagos
Holden Thorp
European Space Agency
ExoMars
Rover
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Fast track for science teachers
A new program will increase the number of science teachers produced at UNC.
Biology and physics majors will be offered a chance to earn N.C. teaching licensure
while simultaneously completing their undergraduate science degrees.
North Carolina’s public schools need 525 new science teachers each year, but the
UNC system’s 15 teacher education programs, including Carolina’s, collectively produced
only around 200 teachers in 2006-2007. Science is one of the highest need areas for
qualified teachers in public schools today.
The School of Education and the College have collaborated to create the program
UNC-BEST (UNC Baccalaureate Education in Science and Teaching) that will launch
this fall.
In the past, an undergraduate science major at Carolina had to pursue additional
study after graduation to fulfill the requirements for teaching licensure. Now, students can
complete their science degree and fulfill licensure requirements during their undergraduate
years.
“We know that one of the most important factors that influences young people to
pursue careers in science is an excellent and enthusiastic high school teacher,” said Laurie
McNeil, chair of the department of physics and astronomy. “We expect that UNC-BEST
graduates will help to increase the number of North Carolinians who prepare themselves
to participate fully in the ‘knowledge economy.’” •
26 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Highlights Bookshelf H i g h l i g h t s
Harmful algae
taking advantage
of global warming
You know that green scum
creeping across the surface of your local
public water reservoir? Or maybe it’s
choking out a favorite fishing spot or
livestock watering hole. It’s probably
cyanobacteria — blue-green algae —
and, according to a paper in the journal
Science, it relishes the weather extremes
that accompany global warming.
Hans Paerl, a Kenan Professor of
marine and environmental sciences, is
co-author of the paper. He calls the algae
the “cockroach of lakes.” It’s everywhere
and it’s hard to exterminate — but when
the sun comes up it
doesn’t scurry to a
corner, it’s still there,
and it’s growing, as
thick as 3 feet in some
areas.
The algae has been
linked to digestive,
neurological and skin
diseases and fatal liver
disease in humans.
It costs municipal
water systems many millions of dollars
to treat in the United States alone. And
though it’s more prevalent in developing
countries, it grows on key bodies of
water across the world, including Lake
Victoria in Africa, the Baltic Sea, Lake
Erie and bays of the Great Lakes, and in
the main reservoir for Raleigh, N.C.
“It’s long been known that nutrient
runoff contributes to cyanobacterial
growth. Now scientists can factor in
temperature and global warming,” said
Paerl.
Fish and other aquatic animals
and plants stand little chance against
cyanobacteria. The algae crowds the
surface water, shading out plants below.
The fish generally avoid cyanobacteria,
so they’re left without food. And when
the algae die, they sink to the bottom
where their decomposition can lead to
extensive depletion of oxygen. •
Early bird
doesn’t always
get the worm
New research from a
UNC biologist runs somewhat
counter to common wisdom,
which holds that baby birds
in eggs laid before their brood
mates have a better chance of
surviving long enough to leave
the nest.
But after studying a
population of Lincoln’s sparrows
in a remote stretch of Colorado, Keith Sockman, an assistant biology professor, has
discovered that first-laid eggs are, in fact, the least likely to hatch at all.
“I believe this is the first study to follow siblings from laying through fledging and
demonstrate that the effect of laying order on hatching is very
different from its effect post-hatching,” said Sockman.
Female Lincoln’s sparrows lay one egg per day, usually
producing three to five eggs. While carefully observing and
tracking the tiny birds, Sockman noticed that typically, mothers
do not settle down and start incubating the eggs right away.
Sockman believes this contributes to the lower probability that
first-laid eggs will hatch at all — but also helps to ensure that
overall, a greater number of reasonably healthy, feisty chicks
hatch and go on to develop into young birds. •
Keith Sockman
Hans Paerl
Keith Sockman studied Lincoln’s sparrows.
Lake Taihu, China
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 27
Bookshelf C o l l e g e B o o k s h e l f
• Holy Smoke: The Big
Book of North Carolina
Barbecue (UNC Press) by
southern culture expert John
Shelton Reed, fellow pork
lover Dale Volberg Reed and
alumnus William McKinney.
This definitive guide to
the people, places, holy
rituals and culinary secrets
behind the world’s best ’cue,
includes: interviews with pit
masters, instructions for cooking a whole
hog, recipes from Crook’s and Mama Dip’s,
and lyrics from Clyde Edgerton, the Bluegrass
Experience and the Red Clay Ramblers.
• Dreaming Up America (Seven Stories
Press) by Russell Banks ’67. The UNC
College alumnus and acclaimed novelist
has published his first nonfiction book, a
collection of essays on American origins,
values, heroes, conflicts and contradictions.
Banks draws on literature, film, history
and contemporary politics to explore the
intermingling creative and destructive
forces that have shaped
and changed the American
dream.
• Experimental Philosophy
(Oxford University Press)
co-edited by Joshua Knobe
(UNC) and Shaun Nichols
(University of Arizona). In
one of the most exciting
and controversial recent
developments in the field,
philosophers are engaging
human subjects directly to learn more
about what people think and how routine
intuitions affect personal perspective. This
volume brings together leading articles and
papers on this new approach.
• Old War: Poems
(Houghton Mifflin) by
Alan Shapiro. This ninth
collection of poems by
the UNC W.R. Kenan Jr.
Distinguished Professor
of English explores the
vagaries of love and the
place of beauty in a time
of war. Shapiro uses
varied forms (first-person
lyrics to
dramatic monologues) and
characters (from a country-and-
western singer to a
Jewish stand-up comic in
heaven).
• Cuba in the American
Imagination (UNC Press)
by Louis A. Pérez Jr. The
eminent Cuban historian
discusses the powerful
metaphors used in
popular political narratives
to describe the United States’ troubled
relationship with its island
neighbor: Cuba as ripe fruit,
a woman, a child learning
to ride a bicycle. Perez is J.
Carlyle Sitterson Professor
of History and director
of UNC’s Institute for the
Study of the Americas.
• General Lee’s Army
(Simon & Schuster) by
Joseph T. Glatthaar. The
renowned UNC historian
and Alan Stephenson Distinguished
Professor drew from letters, diaries and
official records to rewrite the story of
General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern
Virginia and of the Civil War itself. The
author’s scholarship and vivid narrative, and
the soldiers’ own words, will carry readers
from Manassas, Antietam and Gettysburg to
the final surrender at Appomattox.
• The Magical Campus: University of
North Carolina Writings of Thomas Wolfe
(University of South Carolina Press), co-edited
by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Aldo P.
Magi, foreword by Pat Conroy. This first-ever
collection of Wolfe’s earliest published
work, created while
he was a Chapel Hill
undergraduate, includes
poems, plays, short fiction,
news articles and essays.
Wolfe began his studies
at UNC in 1916 at age
15. Magi’s library of more
than 3,000 Wolfe items is
housed at Carolina.
• Life of William Grimes,
the Runaway Slave
(Oxford University Press),
co-edited by William L. Andrews and Regina
E. Mason. Grimes’ autobiography is the first
fugitive slave narrative in American history,
which the author wrote and published on
his own in 1823 and 1855. This annotated
edition represents a historic partnership
between Andrews, a leading scholar of
North American slave narratives, and Mason,
Grimes’ great-great-great granddaughter,
who spent 15 years researching and
documenting his life. Andrews, UNC’s
E. Maynard Adams Professor of English
and Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts
and Humanities, is editor of another new
volume, The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt
(Penguin Classics), a selection of works by
the late-19th century author. Chestnutt was
the first African-American novelist to achieve
national critical acclaim. •
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 29 9/11/08 4:36:33 PM
2008 H o n o r R o l l
28 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Thank You!
The College of Arts and Sciences gratefully
thanks the more than 12,000 donors who
supported its students, faculty and programs
in fiscal year 2007-2008. Every charitable gift
made to the College strengthens its 215-year-old
tradition of educating students in the arts,
humanities and sciences.
The 2008 Honor Roll recognizes donors
whose gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences
between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008,
qualify them for membership in the following
giving societies:
• Chancellors’ Circle — $10,000 and above
• Carolina Society — $5,000 to $9,999
• 1793 Society — $2,000 to $4,999
• Dean’s Circle — $1,500 to $1,999
Young Alumni Levels
Classes 1998 to 2002: $500 and above
Classes 2003 to 2007: $250 and above
In academic year 2008, 1,141 donors made
gifts to the College at the Dean’s Circle level
or higher, providing the College with vital
resources for creating and maintaining a
first-rate academic experience at Carolina.
The Honor Roll does not include bequests or
other planned gifts to the College. Furthermore,
it omits the 43 anonymous donors. This list
has been prepared with great care to ensure
its accuracy. To report a mistake, please
contact Tina CoyneSmith at (919) 962-1682
or tc@unc.edu.
Thank you, once again, for generously
supporting the College of Arts and Sciences
at Carolina!
Chancellors’ Circle ($10,000 and above)
• Peter Ackerman, Washington, DC
• Ivan V. Anderson Jr. and Renee Dobbins
Anderson, Charleston, SC
• R. Frank Andrews IV, Washington, DC
• Q. Whitfield Ayres, McLean, VA
• Donald Aaron Baer, Washington, DC
• Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Beasley, Burns, TN
• John B. and Laura Hobby Beckworth,
Houston, TX
• McKay Belk, Charlotte, NC
• Philip D. Bennett, London, UK
• Daniel Lewis Bernstein, Bronxville, NY
• Dr. Thad L. Beyle and Patricia C. Beyle,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Mr. and Mrs. Laszlo Birinyi Jr., Southport, CT
• Peter and Heather Boneparth, Lawrence, NY
• Mary Mills and W. Lee Borden, Goldsboro, NC
• Michael L. Boyatt, Beech Mountain, NC
• Deanne and Kirk J. Bradley, Chapel Hill, NC
• Stephen G. Brantley, MD, Tampa, FL
• William S. Brenizer, Glen Head, NY
• Anne Faris Brennan, New York, NY
• Kristin Lynn Breuss and Geoffrey P. Burgess,
London, UK
• Amy Woods Brinkley, Charlotte, NC
• Edgar M. Bronfman, New York, NY
• James Asa Bruton III, Clifton, VA
• Catherine Bryson, Santa Monica, CA
• Nancy Faison Bryson, Vero Beach, FL
• Timothy Brooks Burnett, Greensboro, NC
• Mr. and Mrs. John W. Burress III,
Winston-Salem, NC
• Sunny Harvey and R. Lee Burrows Jr., Atlanta, GA
• Ann Williams and Robert L. Burrus,
Richmond, VA
• Susan S. Caudill and W. Lowry Caudill,
Durham, NC
• Norman Phillip Chapel, Edina, MN
• Mr. Max C. Chapman Jr., New York, NY
• Munroe and Becky Cobey, Chapel Hill, NC
• Huddy and Jerry Cohen, Chapel Hill, NC
• Harvey Colchamiro, Greensboro, NC
• James Reuben Copland IV, New York, NY
• Vicki U. and David F. Craver, Cos Cob, CT
• Rose Cunneen Crawford, Bronxville, NY
• Estate of John Marvin Crews*, Wilmington, NC
• Laura Brown Cronin, Acton, MA
• Stephen Mark Cumbie and Druscilla French,
McLean, VA
• James Lecil Curtis, Boston, MA
• Hildegarde O.R. Dahl, Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
• James A. Davis, New Hope, PA
• Lyell C. Dawes Jr., Pinehurst, NC
• Estate of Helen Finch Dial*, Dillon, MT
• Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Dorn, Washington, DC
• Martha Scott and Craig Prescott Dunlevie,
Atlanta, GA
• Steven S. and Katherine S. Dunlevie, Atlanta, GA
• Stuart E. Eizenstat, Chevy Chase, MD
• Eli N. Evans, New York, NY
• Alan S. Fields, Lexington, MA
• Linda Whitham and Jaroslav T. Folda III,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Jeffrey Butler Franklin, Goldsboro, NC
• Henry and Molly Froelich, Charlotte, NC
• Estate of Sarah Fore Gaines*, Greensboro, NC
• Adam D. Galinsky, Chicago, IL
• Lawrence L. and Carol G. Gellerstedt, Atlanta, GA
• Cosby Wiley George, Greenwich, CT
• Dr. R. Barbara Gitenstein and
Dr. Donald Brett Hart, Pennington, NJ
• Kathleen Gurley and Burton B. Goldstein Jr.,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Elliott Goldstein, Atlanta, GA
• Leonard Goodman, New York, NY
• N. Jay Gould, New York, NY
• Peter Thatcher Grauer, New York, NY
• Bernard Gray, Atlanta, GA
• Julia Sprunt Grumbles, Chapel Hill, NC
• Estate of John R. Guthrie Jr.*, Newport News, VA
• Robert H. Hackney Jr. and Shauna Holiman,
Old Greenwich, CT
• Henry Guy Hagan, Lutherville, MD
• Lucía V. Halpern, London, UK
• Jennifer Lloyd Halsey, Menlo Park, CA
• Henry Haywood Hamilton III, Katy, TX
• Benjamin C. Hammett, Palo Alto, CA
• Robin March Hanes, Asheville, NC
• John William Harris, Charlotte, NC
• Lawrence Douglas Hayes, Stanley, NC
• Emmett Boney Haywood, Raleigh, NC
• Alan Bernard Heilig, Aventura, FL
• Leonard Gray Herring, North Wilkesboro, NC
• Margaret and David M. Hicks Jr., London, UK
• Judge Truman and Joyce Hobbs, Montgomery, AL
• William T. Hobbs II, Charlotte, NC
• Margaret Parker and J. David Holden Jr.,
Wilmington, DE
• W. Howard Holsenbeck, Houston, TX
• Jerry Leo Horner Jr., Raleigh, NC
• Charlotte B. and Frederick S. Hubbell,
Des Moines, IA
• Charlotte Poteat Hughes, Marion, NC
• Barbara R. and Pitt Hyde, Memphis, TN
• Carolyn True and Satoshi Ito, Lanexa, VA
• Jane Berry and John F. Jacques, Nashville, TN
• Lynn Buchheit Janney and Stuart S. Janney,
Butler, MD
• George H. and Janet J. Johnson, Atlanta, GA
• Lyle V. Jones, Pittsboro, NC
• Sheryl Gillikin and Stuart Harrington Jordan,
Fayetteville, NC
• William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan, Fayetteville, NC
• Fred N. Kahn, Asheville, NC
• Gary S. Kaminsky, Haverford, PA
• Emily S. Kass and Charles Weinraub,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Frances Murray Keenan, Baltimore, MD
• Frank* and Betty Kenan, Chapel Hill, NC
• Thomas S. Kenan III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Willis T. King Jr., Summit, NJ
• Courtney Horner and James W. Kluttz Sr.,
Winston-Salem, NC
• Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod, Arlington, VA
• Mary Noel and William M. Lamont Jr., Dallas, TX
• M. Steven Langman, New York, NY
• Brian L. Largent, Wilmington, DE
• W. Hampton Lefler Jr., Hickory, NC
• Seymour and Carol Levin, Greensboro, NC
• Holly and Hal Levinson, Charlotte, NC
• Elizabeth and Michael Liotta, Mooresville, NC
• Elizabeth Stewart and N. Thompson Long,
Fox Point, WI
• Nolan Delano Lovins, Lenoir, NC
• Douglas J. and Shawn T. Mackenzie, Palo Alto, CA
• Robert Allen and Vivian Dixon Manekin,
Owings Mills, MD
• John F. Mars, McLean, VA
• Sarah Robbins Mars, Morristown, NJ
• S. Spence McCachren Jr., Maryville, TN
• Joseph M. and Karen McConnell

F a l l • 2 0 0 8
a r t s&s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a
T h e D e v i l a n d D a n i e l Wa l l a c e
Also inside:
• Politics and the Press
• Deportation Dilemmas
• Chronicling N.C. Movie-Going
• Tim Tyson’s Book on Stage and Screen
T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 1 9/11/08 4:32:39 PM
The College of Arts & Sciences
• Bruce W. Carney
Interim Dean
• William Andrews ’70 MA, ’73 PhD
Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities
• Thomas Clegg
Interim Senior Associate Dean, Sciences
• Karen Gil
Senior Associate Dean,
Social Sciences, International Programs
• Tammy McHale
Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Planning
• James W. May
Senior Associate Dean, Program Development;
Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation
• Bobbi Owen
Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education
Arts & Sciences Foundation
Board of Directors
• Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC, Chair
• James L. Alexandre ’79, Haverford, PA,
Vice-Chair
• Bruce W. Carney, Chapel Hill, NC, President
• William L. Andrews, ’70 MA, ’73 PhD,
Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President
• Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer
• James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary
• D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC
• R. Frank Andrews, ’90, ’95 MBA, Washington, DC
• Valerie Ashby, ’88, ’94 PhD, Chapel Hill, NC
• Constance Y. Battle. ’77, Raleigh, NC
• William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY
• Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA
• Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88, ’93 MBA,
New York, NY
• G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC
• Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92, ’98 MBA, Los Angeles, CA
• Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Cos Cob, CT
• Steven M. Cumbie ’70, ’73 MBA, McLean, VA
• Jaroslav T. Folda, III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Mary Dewar Froelich ’83, Charlotte, NC
• Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA
• Emmett Boney Haywood ’77, ’82 JD, Raleigh, NC
• William T. Hobbs, II ’85, Charlotte, NC
• Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD
• Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC
• William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX
• Paula R. Newsome ’77, Charlotte, NC
• John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA
• Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL
• H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC
• Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88, ’94 MBA,
Greenwich, CT
• Thomas M. Uhlman ’71, MS, ’75 PhD,
Madison, NJ
• Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK
• Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA, London, UK
• Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH
From the dean F r o m t h e D e a n
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008
Still making a difference,
with your help
Former Dean Holden Thorp’s elevation to
chancellor is great news for UNC and for North Carolina
(see inside back cover). It also presents new opportunities
for the College of Arts and Sciences.
Holden is one of our own — a Kenan professor,
former chemistry chair, N.C. native and College alumnus.
He understands the centrality of the College to “the
Carolina experience.” Like all of us in the College, he
wants what’s good for UNC to be good for the state and
the world.
That’s why I am delighted to serve as interim dean
as the University searches for the next dean of the College. I’m drawing on my experience
as a longtime faculty member, former chair of the department of physics and astronomy and
former senior associate dean for the College. I expect a smooth transition as we continue
moving ahead with our current senior management team, with the addition of distinguished
physicist Thomas Clegg as interim senior associate dean for the sciences.
Thanks to Holden’s leadership, the excellence of our colleagues, staff and students,
and the generosity of our alumni and friends, the College is stronger than at any time in our
history. We ended the Carolina First campaign with nearly $390 million in private gifts.
We are not standing still. In this issue of our magazine, you can learn how the most
recent gifts to the College are enhancing our academic programs in Honors, creative writing,
political science, Jewish studies, physics, computer science and mathematics.
You can also see how discovery, creativity and learning in the College affect lives in and
beyond North Carolina. For example, our faculty associated with the Institute for the Study of
the Americas and the Center for Global Initiatives are studying the unintended consequences
of new immigrant deportation efforts involving local law enforcement agencies.
This issue also features historian Robert Allen, who is developing the first online
statewide database documenting the social and cultural experience of movie-going in the
early 20th century.
You’ll also learn that alumni Jeb Stuart, a Hollywood screenwriter/director, and Mike
Wiley, a North Carolina actor/playwright, are adapting Blood Done Sign My Name, Tim
Tyson’s memoir of an Oxford, N.C., racial murder, for both the stage and screen. And
alumnus and Hollywood star Billy Crudup is set to receive the PlayMaker Award.
Our cover story finds Big Fish author Daniel Wallace adjusting to life as a successful
novelist and a distinguished professor of English. Another feature reveals how computer
scientist Gary Bishop and his students are developing technologies that directly benefit
children with visual impairments and other disabilities.
We couldn’t resist asking public policy professor Hodding Carter, Jimmy Carter’s State
Department spokesperson and a longtime broadcast commentator, to analyze the role of the
press in this historic presidential campaign.
Finally, in our annual Honor Roll, we salute the many alumni and friends whose
generosity ensures that College faculty, students and programs continue to make a difference
in North Carolina and the world. We thank you for your support and for staying connected to
Carolina through the College of Arts and Sciences.
Bruce W. Carney, Interim Dean
Bruce W. Carney
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 2 9/11/08 4:32:41 PM
Table of Contents
F e a t u r e s
6 • Deportation Dilemmas
Exploring the unintended
consequences of new local immigration
enforcement policies
10 • Making History
Come Alive
Two alums bring book about Oxford,
N.C., murder to the stage and screen.
12 • Geeks Do Good
Computer science professor and
students invent gadgets for kids
with disabilities.
14 • The Devil and
Daniel Wallace
The Big Fish author has come a long
way from doodling refrigerator magnets
to landing a movie deal and a
distinguished professorship at UNC.
16 • Going to the Show
Historian chronicles N.C. movie-going
through new digital archive.
Cover photo: Daniel Wallace gets used to his self-portrait and his new role as J. Ross Macdonald
Professor of English and Creative Writing. (Photo by Steve Exum, illustration by Daniel Wallace)
T a b l e o f
C o n t e n t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008
D e p a r t m e n t s
inside front cover
From the Dean
Still making a difference,
with your help
2 High Achievers
DeSimone wins prestigious MIT prize,
Billy Crudup to receive PlayMaker
Award, Kevin Stewart really rocks,
super student scholars, and more
5 Point-of-View
Hodding Carter III on the press and
the presidential campaign
19 Alumni Profile
Folklore alum John Hubbell is
working on new museums for
B.B. King and Earl Scruggs.
20 Highlights
Major gifts for Honors, creative writing
and political science; new professorships;
guarding the Galapagos; UNC &
Duke join forces in German; revealing
new research on teen violence; algae &
global warming; and more
27 College Bookshelf
New books from faculty and alumni
explore North Carolina barbecue,
Cuba, experimental philosophy,
General Lee’s Army, Thomas Wolfe’s
student writings, and more
28 Honor ROll
We thank our many alumni and
friends for their generous support of
the College of Arts and Sciences.
inside back cover
We pay tribute to Holden Thorp,
Carolina’s new chancellor.
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 1
10
Todd Drake
16
Steve Exum
6
Steve Exum
14
Steve Exum
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 3 9/11/08 4:32:57 PM
High Achievers High Billy Crudup
to receive
PlayMaker
Award
Tony Award-winning
theatre
and film star and
UNC alumnus Billy
Crudup will receive
the PlayMaker
Distinguished
Achievement Award
at the 21st annual
PlayMakers Ball in
November.
The ball is the
annual fund-raising gala for PlayMakers
Repertory Company, the professional theatre
in residence in the College of Arts and
Sciences.
Crudup, who received an undergraduate
degree in speech communications from
Carolina in 1990, has had several starring
roles in Hollywood films in recent years. He
earned a Best Actor Award from the Paris
Film Festival for his star performance in the
critically acclaimed movie “Jesus’ Son,” and
he had a major part as a rock musician in
the Academy Award-winning film “Almost
Famous” with Frances McDormand and Kate
Hudson. He also starred in “Charlotte Gray”
and “World Traveler.”
He was most recently seen in the
romantic comedy “Dedication,” opposite
Mandy Moore. In 2006, he played alongside
Robert DeNiro, Matt Damon and Angelina
Jolie in “The Good Shepherd.” He was also in
the third installment of “Mission Impossible.”
His next project is playing J. Edgar Hoover in
“Public Enemies.”
Crudup was seen in “Big Fish,” Columbia
Pictures’ comic fantasy for director Tim Burton,
based on the novel by UNC English professor
Daniel Wallace. (See story on Daniel Wallace
on page 14.)
Crudup has also earned major credits
and honors in the theatre. He won a “Best
Performance by a Featured Actor” Tony Award
for his role in the Broadway production of “The
Coast of Utopia” in 2006. He was seen in “The
Pillowman” in 2005, and he received a Tony
nomination for “Best Actor.”
He starred in
“The Elephant Man”
at the Royale Theater,
for which he was
nominated for a Tony
for ���Best Performance
by a Leading Actor in
a Play.” He made his
Broadway debut in Tom
Stoppard’s “Arcadia,”
which won him several
awards, including the Outer
Critics Circle Award for
“Outstanding Debut of an
Actor.” •
USA Baseball
names Mueller
committee
chair
USA Baseball has named exercise and
sport science professor Fred Mueller as the
chair of the organization’s medical and safety
advisory committee.
Mueller is also the director of the
National Center for Catastrophic Sports
Injury Research, based at UNC, and the
research director for the National Operating
Committee on Standards for Athletic
Equipment.
A member of the medical and safety ad-visory
committee since 1993, Mueller takes
over the position of chair from the late Barry
Goldberg of Yale University.
USA Baseball governs national amateur
baseball and is a member of the United
States Olympic Committee. •
This teacher really rocks
How old is Grandfather Mountain? Are
the Barrier Islands moving? Is there gold in
the Carolinas?
These are the kinds of questions
geologist Kevin Stewart answers through
his classes, his research and his latest book,
Exploring the Geology of the Carolinas.
Stuart won the 2008 Board of Governors’
Award for Excellence in Teaching, the top
instructional honor given to a tenured faculty
member at each UNC campus.
Stewart communicates his contagious
enthusiasm for geologic knowledge to his
Carolina students at all levels. A member
of the Chapel Hill faculty since 1986, he
teaches classes in structural geology and
the geology of North America, as well as a
seminar on the geology of North Carolina
open only to first-year students.
He loves
teaching geology
as much as his
students enjoy
learning about it.
“Many
of the world’s
most pressing
problems,
such as global
warming,
are geologic
problems,”
he says, “so I
think the students can see an immediate
connection between what they learn in the
classroom and what they see in the news.”
His book, published by UNC Press,
includes a brief geological history of the
Carolinas with 31 field trips to easily
accessible and often familiar sites, such
as Chimney Rock, Linville Falls, Stone
Mountain, Jockey’s Ridge and Oregon
Inlet. •
2 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
H i g h A c h i e v e r s
Billy Crudup
Kevin Stewart
Fred Mueller
Dan Sears
Steve Exum
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 4 9/11/08 4:33:08 PM
High Achievers
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 3
DeSimone wins
prestigious MIT prize
Chemist Joseph M. DeSimone won the
prestigious $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for his
innovations in polymer chemistry. He was cited
for pioneering inventions, lab-to-marketplace
entrepreneurship and commitment to mentorship.
DeSimone is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor
of Chemistry in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences
and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of
Chemical Engineering at N.C. State University.
A well-recognized chemist and polymer
expert, DeSimone is known for the development of
groundbreaking solutions in green manufacturing and
promising applications in gene therapy and drug delivery, as well as medical devices.
“Joe is clearly one of the most inventive researchers in all of science,” said Robert S.
Langer, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who
nominated DeSimone for the prize.
The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes outstanding inventors, encourages
sustainable new solutions to real-world problems, and enables and inspires young
people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. •
Online Extra: Video profile and podcasts: http://college.unc.edu.
Pérez named Academy of
Arts and Sciences fellow
Historian Louis Pérez Jr. has been elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and
most prestigious honorary societies.
Pérez is the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and director
of UNC’s Institute for the Study of the Americas. His current research
explores the sources of Cuban nationality and identity. He is the author of
To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society (2005), a social and cultural history of
suicide in Cuba, and his latest, Cuba in the American Imagination, (see page 27) both by UNC
Press. His research interests center on the 19th and 20th century Caribbean, with emphasis
on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. He teaches courses on the history of Latin America,
Mexico, the Caribbean and Cuba.
The list of new Academy fellows includes U.S. Supreme Court senior associate justice
John Paul Stevens, computer company founder Michael Dell, two-time cabinet secretary and
former White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, Academy Award-winning filmmakers
Ethan and Joel Cohen, and blues guitarist B.B. King. •
H i g h A c h i e v e r s
Chemist wins DuPont
Young Professor award
Wei You, assistant professor of
chemistry, has received a $75,000 DuPont
Young Professor grant.
He is one of only 17 researchers from
the United States, China, Spain and India
to be chosen for the award this year.
You’s research includes work
in the field of organic
photovoltaics, solar cells
that are thinner and more
flexible than traditional
silicon-based solar cells.
He will use the three-year grant
to explore new materials and ways of
fabricating photovoltaic cells, with the aim
of creating high efficiency, low-cost cells
that use sunlight to generate energy.
The DuPont program is designed to
provide start-up assistance to promising
young and untenured research faculty
working in areas of interest to DuPont’s
long-term business. •
Louis Pérez Jr.
Joseph DeSimone
Wei You
Dan Sears
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 5 9/11/08 4:33:15 PM
High Achievers Point-H i g h A c h i e v e r s
4 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Lisa Bond Stephanie Jones
Mike Tarrant
Danielle Allen
Elinor Benami
Super
student
scholars
Seven students in
the College have received
national distinguished
scholarships.
• Lisa Bond of Bowie,
Md., and Stephanie Jones
of Cary, N.C., were named Churchill
Scholars.
The scholarships support graduate
work at Cambridge University in England
and are valued at $46,000 to $52,000.
Bond was a biology major with a
chemistry minor at Carolina. She will use
the scholarship to earn a master’s degree
in biochemistry. Jones, a chemistry major
with a minor in entrepreneurship, will seek
a master’s degree in chemistry. Both aim
to become university research professors.
At UNC, Bond was a research assistant
in the genetics lab of biology professor Kerry
Bloom. She also was an author on a scientific
paper published in January in Current
Biology.
Last year, Bond interned at the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the
National Institutes for Health. She studied
the role that myosin proteins play in cellular
processes, including transportation of
messenger RNA. Mutation of one of these
proteins has been implicated in disorders
including heart disease; too much of the
protein may play a role in prostate cancer,
she said.
Jones had conducted research at UNC
since she was a high school junior.
“The University of Cambridge will be
the perfect place to continue my exploration
of how chemical factors contribute to stem
cell biology, and how materials can be
rationally designed to induce differentiation
and tissue repair,” she said.
• Danielle Allen of Monroe, N.C.,
received a Truman Scholarship, which is
worth $30,000 for graduate studies.
Allen plans to use the award to attend
law school. A double major in public
policy and economics, she also is earning
a minor in urban studies and planning at
UNC. She plans to become an attorney
for an organization that works to address
inequalities in public education.
She was also recently named one of
Glamour Magazine’s “Top 10 (Next) Role
Models,” a title given to highly accomplished
female college students.
The summer after her freshman
year at UNC, Allen taught English to
socioeconomically disadvantaged children
in Austin, Texas — one of four summer
enrichment and service experiences provided
to her as a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
Before law school, Allen plans to work
for two years with Teach for America.
• Mike Tarrant of Raleigh, N.C., was
awarded a Luce Scholarship to live and learn
in Asia.
A double major in political science and
communication studies, Tarrant was student
body vice president at Carolina.
The Henry Luce Foundation provides
the scholarships for a year’s internship in Asia,
with the goal of acquainting future American
leaders with Asian colleagues in their fields.
Tarrant plans to
pursue graduate degrees
in public administration or
public policy and higher
education administration.
“I intend to dedicate
my life to ensuring that
higher education continues
to be ‘the mind in service
to society,’” Tarrant said.
• Elinor Benami of
Knoxville, Tenn., was awarded a Morris
K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship,
one of the nation’s top merit awards.
The award will cover tuition,
books, room and board for up to $5,000
for Benami’s junior year.
Benami, who is double-majoring
in international studies and economics,
plans a career in environmental
consulting.
“Through my work, I hope
to encourage an understanding of how
environmental issues have ramifications on
many other significant issues in the world,”
she said.
Udall scholarships are awarded
to students interested in careers in
environmental, health care or public policy.
• Ben Edwards of Knightdale, N.C.,
and Ben Bogardus of Cullowhee, N.C., have
won Hollings Scholarships from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA).
The Hollings Scholarships provide
$8,000 in academic assistance during
the winners’ junior and senior years. The
program also provides a 10-week paid
summer internship.
Edwards is pursuing a major in
environmental science and a minor in
marine sciences. He is a Carolina Scholar
and a National Marine Science Bowl state
champion.
Bogardus is pursuing a major in
environmental science and a minor in
geology. He serves as a research assistant for
the UNC geography department on a dam
and stream restoration study in Chapel Hill
and the Adirondacks. •
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 6 9/11/08 4:33:27 PM
Point-of-View P o i n t - o f - V i e w
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 5
has produced stunning results. Major “isms”
— sexism, racism, ageism — have lost most
of their wind. Bright, able candidates have
confronted each other in both parties. Each
party has eventually embraced a non-conventional
candidate, the Democratic Party
in particular deciding to throw out virtually
all the shibboleths of over two centuries of
American political history.
But the media haven’t measured up to
the moment.
Start with the big picture, then narrow
the focus to the micro. At the very time
that the world and nation are in the midst
of fundamental transition and change, with
long-deferred systemic problems coming
home to roost, the mainstream media are
relentlessly cutting back on the quantity and
quality of news coverage and reporters. You
can’t actually do more with less in the news
business, no matter how hard some media
executives try to pretend otherwise. When
you gut resources, you shortchange the public.
Just as the political handlers continue
to perfect their craft, trying to control the
parameters of each campaign’s narrative by
ruthless manipulation of imagery and facts,
the babbling heads of talk media spend most
of their time amplifying spin rather then
deconstructing it. As the veteran political
reporter and columnist David Broder wrote
two decades ago, the press’s obligation is to
break away from each campaign’s thematic
monologue and demand honest straight talk
from the candidates about hard, specific
issues. What we have instead, over and over,
is obsessive concentration on pseudo-events,
manufactured issues and artful demagoguery
about teapot tempests. Many of the peacocks
Begin with an assumption. In our
democratic system, perhaps the press’s most
valuable role is to provide the information
necessary for citizens to make informed
decisions about their government and its
officials. Without such information, we are
quite literally at the mercy of those who are
supposed to be our servants.
Add a cliché, much beloved of political
journalists of the past half century or so. The
reporters’ job is to write the first, rough draft
of history.
With that as background, consider the
broadcast echo chamber we endured in
waiting rooms, airport gateways and our own
homes over the interminable primary process.
What kind of grade did the “first, rough” drafts
you and I were served by those ubiquitous
24/7 cable news gong shows deserve?
Read the newspapers most Americans
encounter in their home towns.
Listen to radio. Go online and sample
that endless array of Web sites and
blogs promising news, information
and opinion. Watch network and
local television. What can most of us learn
about the world from the dietary array most
readily available? How much of the new
media can be trusted as something more than
ideology and bile masquerading as informed
commentary?
Now confront the question that haunts
the press during and after every presidential
campaign, none more so than this year’s.
How good a job have the media done in
covering the shift-shaping, paradigm-shattering
realities of election year 2008?
On the basis of a half-century’s experience
as a newspaper reporter and editor, television
correspondent and commentator, government
official and political activist, I am depressed
by what I believe are the unpleasantly clear
answers to all these questions.
On the one hand, the political process
of the political
commentariat
seem to
be without
shame or self-awareness.
Watch, read
and listen long
enough, and
it becomes evident they have decided that
glib mastery of insider political baseball is the
main point of the presidential election.
There are noteworthy exceptions to
the preceding indictment. But even the best
are under pressure to revert to the mean,
to dilute the product while amplifying the
volume. It is a depressing time for those who
care about good journalism, no less than for
those who care about the nation’s political
health.
What is the best way for
journalists to cover the presidential
campaign? By covering the news at
home and abroad with consistency,
depth and integrity. By exploring
and amplifying the important issues, refuting
lies and demanding answers. By pulling back
from the temptation to behave like self-satisfied
players in the political game.
Viewed through the long lens of
American history, this is a watershed political
year. It deserves more, much more, from the
press, but the prospects are not bright.
— Hodding Carter is the University
Professor of Public Policy and Leadership
at UNC. He served as State Department
spokesperson for President Jimmy Carter
and went on to become a nationally
known television commentator and a chief
correspondent for “Frontline” on PBS. Before
coming to UNC in 2006, he served as
president and chief executive officer of the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. •
Hodding Carter III
The Press and the Presidential Campaign
By Hodding Carter III
... the babbling heads of talk media
spend most of their time amplifying spin
rather than deconstructing it. [ ]
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 7 9/11/08 4:33:34 PM
6 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
mother driving her children to visit their
father in Maryland was pulled over late
one summer night by a sheriff’s deputy in
Alamance County for displaying an improper
registration tag.
A minor offense that might have
resulted in a delay and fine for another driver
held dire consequences for this family. The
mother, an undocumented immigrant from
Latin America, was passing through a county
where deputies are embracing a new effort
to enforce a deportation law that they say is
designed to crack down on violent crime.
The sweeping impact of the law
is the subject of a new UNC study
involving faculty in the College of Arts
and Sciences.
In the Alamance case, the
woman’s “crime” was crossing the U.S.
border to feed her family and driving
without a valid license, which, by state
law, illegal immigrants are not able to obtain.
She was handcuffed, jailed and quickly slated
for deportation, leaving her three children,
ages 6, 10 and 14, to fend for themselves.
The authorities left the distraught siblings
in a car along I-85 in the middle of the night,
with an adult passenger they barely knew;
he soon fled the scene because of his own
immigration woes. The children, two of them
legal U.S. citizens, huddled in the dark for
hours until their father, an undocumented
immigrant, could find someone to transport
him there. Driving without a license could
have ended with his deportation.
At press time, the two youngest children
were with their father, and their older sister
was with another relative.The fragmented
family is more uncertain and fearful than ever
of what their future holds.
Exploring the unintended consequences of
new local immigration enforcement policies
DEPORTATION
DILEMMAS
B y D e e R e i d
This is just one of more than 5,300 North Carolina cases processed
for deportation since 2006 — more than 50 per week — according to
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office (ICE).
The Alamance case illustrates the complex consequences
associated with 287(g), the section of a 1996 federal law that authorizes
local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of jail
inmates and begin deportation proceedings for those who are in the
country illegally.
The program is now being enforced in seven North Carolina
counties: Alamance, Cumberland, Durham, Gaston, Henderson,
Mecklenburg and Wake — making North Carolina the national leader
in 287(g) deportation programs.
Cabarrus County has signed a memorandum of understanding to
implement the program, and 15 other N.C. counties are considering
it, including Alexander, Brunswick, Buncombe, Carteret, Columbus,
Duplin, Guilford, Iredell, Lee, Lincoln, Pender, Randolph, Surry, Union
and Yadkin.
The N.C. Sheriffs Association received $750,000 in state funding
last year and another $1 million this year for training and support to
spread the program across the state. Community advocates question the
motivation of the Sheriffs Association, which refers to undocumented
immigrants as “illegal alien invaders,” claims Mexicans are responsible
for most drug activity in North Carolina, and argues that the state should
reduce the number of legal visas offered to
immigrants.
UNC scholars are exploring the
social and economic costs, benefits and
impacts of 287(g) in North Carolina to
ensure that state and local officials have
accurate information before the program is
expanded. Their study is sponsored by the
Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA)
in the College of Arts and Sciences and the
Center for Global Initiatives (CGI).
The cost-benefit analysis is part of
a larger university-wide student-faculty
research circle on 287(g) issues that
was started in the summer of 2007.
Another product of this group is a legal
report researched and compiled by the
Immigration/Human Rights Policy Clinic
under the direction of Deborah Weissman,
the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor
in the School of Law.
“We want to make sure that
policymakers have all of the information they need before they
implement this,” said anthropologist Hannah Gill ’99, assistant director
of ISA and CGI, coordinator of the research circle and co-principal
investigator of the 287(g) cost-benefit study, along with Mai Nguyen
(see facing page).
Gill is author of Going to Carolina Del Norte, which highlights
A North Carolina
Todd Drake
Craig McDuffie
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 7
continued
their impact on the state’s economy.
Nguyen was born in South Vietnam
and emigrated at age 2 in 1975 after the fall
of Saigon. She and her family lived at first in
a refugee camp in Arkansas. She was named
a UNC Faculty Engaged Scholar because her
work directly engages local communities.
[See page 12 for a story on another Faculty
Engaged Scholar.]
• Jacqueline Hagan, associate
professor of sociology, and an expert on
the impact of U.S. deportation policy on
individuals and families on both sides of the
border.
Scenes from Celaya, Mexico, where many Chapel Hill and Carrboro immigrants once lived, reprinted from
Going to Carolina del Norte by Hannah Gill. ABOVE: Where migrants catch the bus to Chapel Hill, Burling-ton,
Greensboro and other North Carolina destinos. LEFT: A young Tar Heel fan displays his connection to a
faraway land where many of his former neighbors now live and work.
the stories of immigrants from Celaya, Mexico, who live in Carrboro,
N.C. She teaches an international studies/ service learning course on
Latin American migrant perspectives, in which students research and
work with immigrants in North Carolina and spend spring break in the
immigrants’ communities back in Guanajuato, Mexico. Some of her
students returned to Mexico with Nourish International, a UNC student-founded
nonprofit organization, and helped raise $40,000 to build a
community center providing services and jobs.
College scholars involved in the 287(g) research circle, include:
• Mai Nguyen, co-principal investigator of the cost-benefit analysis
and assistant professor in city and regional planning. She is an expert
on local immigration ordinances in North Carolina and on community
development and crime prevention among disadvantaged and
immigrant populations. She wrote “Five Myths about Illegal Immigration
in North Carolina,” which debunks stereotypes about immigrants and
Some
immigrants
are married to
U.S. citizens
and some or
all of their
children may
be citizens as
well. When the
undocumented
parent is
deported,
he or she
may reluctantly
leave behind
children in the
U.S. who are
citizens, so
that they can
pursue better
educational
and work
opportunities.
Niklaus Steiner
Craig McDuffie
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8 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
She also has co-authored a study on the unintended human and
economic consequences of tightening the southern U.S. border, including
increased deaths among immigrants taking more dangerous detour routes
to the U.S. Her newest book, Migration Miracle (Harvard University Press),
looks at the role of religion in immigrants’ decisions to migrate and in
helping them cope with the arduous journey.
• Mary Donegan, a Ph.D. student in city and regional planning,
is serving as research assistant, with funding from the Vice Chancellor for
Engagement and the Vice Chancellor for Research.
Since April, the UNC group has held three public forums with
county commissioners, law enforcement authorities, business executives,
immigrant advocates, Hispanic community leaders and members of the
general public. Researchers have been collecting and analyzing data on the
immigrants arrested under 287(g) and expect to issue a full report in the fall.
North Carolina
has one one of
the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the United States (the top five
states are all in the Southeast). More than 595,000 Hispanic immigrants
lived in the state in 2006, a 58 percent increase over the previous six
years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. While 300,000 to 400,000
undocumented immigrants may live in N.C., according to the Pew Center,
most of the recent increase in the Hispanic population is actually due to
births, not border crossings, and those children are legal U.S. citizens.
Interest in 287(g) increased in the wake of Congressional failure to
enact reforms that might have slowed illegal immigration and created a
path to legal status for immigrants who are already living and working in
this country.
The federal program got a foothold in North Carolina in 1999 when
then Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said he thought it would help
decrease violent crime. However, UNC researchers’ preliminary findings
show no correlation between increased crime and immigration.
As North Carolina’s Latino population grew between 1997 and 2006,
the incidents of violent crime and property crime decreased statewide,
according to researcher Nguyen.
Preliminary data in Alamance and Mecklenburg counties show
that nearly one-third of immigrants processed for deportation were
apprehended for misdemeanors or traffic violations, such as driving
without a license, not violent crimes.
What’s more, 287(g) itself may make communities less safe because it
discourages immigrants from reporting crimes that they witness, and it may
make it easier for others to commit crimes against immigrants, according to
the UNC study.
The 287(g) study group aims to measure the local costs and benefits
of the program.
“The perception is that it doesn’t cost local law enforcement
anything” because initial funds are provided by federal and state
government, said Nguyen. But there are ongoing local costs for staff,
equipment and maintenance, she said.
Tienda Don José in Carrboro resembles
the bodegas back in Celaya.
Proponents
of 287(g) say
they never
intended
for children
to be left
vulnerable
by the
new policy.
But they
also say that
undocumented
immigrants
have only
themselves
to blame
for these
problems
because they
chose to cross
the border
illegally.
Todd Drake
Craig McDuffie
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 9
More Immigration Experts
In addition to scholars involved in the 287(g) study project,
many College faculty are researching other aspects of immigration.
Here are a few highlights:
• Altha Cravey, associate professor of geography, has been
involved in daily social activities of immigrants in the U.S. South for
several years. She examines the impacts of globalization on migrants
and their culture, and how immigrants creatively affect the process
of political, economic and cultural interaction in the hemisphere.
She is working on a documentary film about cultural celebrations of
the Virgin of Guadalupe in Durham, N.C. She is also the author of
Women and Work in Mexico’s Maquiladoras.
• Nichola Lowe, assistant professor of city and regional
planning, focuses on economic development policy and workforce
development. She is studying the skill development process of
immigrant laborers in the U.S. construction industry.
• Margarita Mooney, assistant professor of sociology,
has researched the adaptation of immigrants from Haiti and Latin
America. She has a forthcoming book on Haitian immigrants and
she also recently co-authored a study on the pathways to success
taken by high-achieving Latino/a students at 27 elite public and
private institutions of higher education.
�� Ted Mouw, associate professor of sociology, has been
studying the economic and social impacts of globalization in Mexico
and Indonesia. He is interested in social mobility and the impact of
social networking among Hispanic immigrants in North Carolina.
Regardless of intent, 287(g) hurts both legal and undocumented immigrants,
as the story of the Alamance County highway arrest reveals.
Many undocumented immigrants living in North Carolina today
have been in the U.S. for years. Their households can be a blend of legal
and illegal immigrants, said Hagan, the UNC sociologist.
Some immigrants are married to U.S. citizens and some or all
of their children may be citizens as well, she explained. When the
undocumented parent is deported, he or she may reluctantly leave
behind children in the U.S. who are citizens, so that they can pursue
better educational and work opportunities.
Hagan found that families get fragmented as a result of long-term
migration and that can be further complicated with deportation.
Immigrants who stay in the U.S. for a long period form relationships here
that may end when the immigrant is deported. Depending on how long
the immigrant has been away from the homeland, he or she may have a
difficult time getting adjusted back in Latin America, she said.
Another troubling impact is that when immigrants are deported,
they can no longer send money back to their loved ones in the
homeland, Hagan said.
In Mexico alone, such remittances
totaled $23.7 billion in 2006, representing
the country’s second largest source of foreign
income, next to oil. The Bank of Mexico
reports that remittances dropped 2.9 percent in
the first quarter of this year.
Regardless of their legal status, children
are emotionally and financially affected by
deportation.
Proponents of 287(g) say they never
intended for children to be left vulnerable
by the new policy. But they also say that
undocumented immigrants have only
themselves to blame for these problems
because they chose to cross the border illegally.
Gill says that many immigrants feel they
have no choice. “They don’t really want to
come here. They do it out of necessity.” •
• Krista Perreira, associate professor of public policy,
has been studying the inter-relationships between family, health
and social policy among low-income women, teens and children
in the Hispanic immigrant population in North Carolina. She
recently completed a study of the mental health of immigrant
children and is conducting an ongoing study of the academic
experiences of Latino/a youth in North Carolina.
• Roberto Quercia, professor of city and regional
planning and director of the Center for Community Capital, is
an expert on housing and banking. Researchers at the Center
recently evaluated Nuestro Barrio, a Hispanic soap opera or
telenovela aired on television in the Carolinas, which was
designed to educate immigrants about finances and banking.
The study concluded that the programs appealed to viewers and
increased their awareness of financial issues.
• Nina Martin, assistant professor of urban geography,
joined the College this summer as the first Jordan Family Fellow
in International Studies. Born in Dublin and educated in London,
Montreal and Chicago, she has a global perspective. She has been
studying community responses to changing economic and social
conditions in U.S. cities, including immigration and low-wage
work in unsafe conditions.
The Jordan professorship was established to help the College
recruit and retain outstanding junior faculty. The endowment is
funded by a bequest from the late William Jordan ’38 in honor
of his mother, Louise Manning Huske Jordan, with support from
nephew Stuart Jordan ’85 and his wife Sheri. •
Craig McDuffie
Craig McDuffie
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 11 9/11/08 4:34:13 PM
10 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Mike Wiley was standing in the
spotlight, portraying Abraham Lincoln in
a sixth-grade school play in Roanoke, Va.,
when he first fell in love with acting.
“It had this effect that went right down
to my toes. I loved it so much I probably
beamed for two days after that,” said Wiley,
who received an MFA from the Professional
Actor Training Program in UNC’s
department of dramatic art in 2004. “It just
took off in my body and brain like wildfire.”
Over the years, Wiley has dabbled in
advertising and editing, but acting has always
called him back.
Acting isn’t the only thing that consumes
Wiley like wildfire. He has a passion,
what some would call a life mission, to tell
the forgotten stories of American history
— particularly African-American history —
to bring those stories out in the open, from
the page to the stage.
Through his Apex, N.C.-based
company, Mike Wiley Productions, he
has taken those stories on the road — to
schools, community theaters, churches and
public libraries. Wiley’s original one-man
shows have brought to life Virginia slave
Henry “Box” Brown, who mailed himself
to freedom in a crate; baseball player Jackie
Robinson, who broke the color barrier; and
14-year-old Emmett Till, who was murdered
in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white
woman.
“Students have forgotten so much of
their national history,” Wiley said. “It’s my
job to reignite that desire to know this history,
to know where they came from … because I,
too, have benefited from my ancestors.”
Wiley’s latest project, perhaps his most
personal and ambitious to date, has strong
North Carolina ties. He has written a one-man
play based on author Tim Tyson’s 2004
memoir, Blood Done Sign My Name, which
examines the civil unrest that followed the
brutal murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow,
a 23-year-old African-American veteran, by
three white men in Oxford, N.C., in 1970.
An all-white jury acquitted the men of the
murder. The book was chosen as the Carolina
Summer Reading Program book in 2005.
Tyson is an adjunct professor of American
studies at UNC and a senior scholar at the
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke
University. The son of Methodist minister
Making
History
Come Alive
One alum brings book
about Oxford murder
from the page to the stage…
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
Steve Exum
Playwright and actor
Mike Wiley (MFA ’04) at the
Oxford, N.C., gravesite
of Henry Marrow.
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 12 9/11/08 4:34:35 PM
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 11
A friend sent Hollywood screenwriter and Carolina alum Jeb Stuart the book
Blood Done Sign My Name when he was on vacation three years ago.
Author Tim Tyson’s 2004 memoir examines the civil unrest that followed the brutal
murder of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old African-American veteran, by three white men
in Oxford, N.C., in 1970.
Stuart (BA English ’78, MA communication studies ’82) grew up in Gastonia, N.C.,
and like Tyson, is also a minister’s son. It’s not the kind of movie that the blockbuster
filmmaker, who brought “Die Hard,” “The Fugitive” and “Another 48 Hours” to the
screen, has typically been associated with in his professional life.
But a part of the book jumped out at Stuart, where Tyson speaks about “the two
Souths.” Stuart shared the book with his father, who acknowledged that he had been
through some of the same struggles as Vernon Tyson, Tim’s father.
“There was the South of Tim’s childhood, which closely mirrored mine,” Stuart
said. “At the same time, there’s the idea that a whole group of people grew up in the
same geographical space, but with totally different feelings about the same symbols
[like the Confederate flag.]”
And like Carolina alum Mike Wiley (MFA ’04), who is adapting the book for the
stage, Stuart also wanted to spotlight “some of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights
Movement,” people like North Carolina activists Eddie McCoy, Ben Chavis and Golden
Frinks.
“It was a rise of a very different type of civil rights in this country. Martin Luther
King is dead, Malcolm X is dead, and the movement had stopped moving forward in
places like Oxford,” said Stuart, the film’s writer and director. “But Ben Chavis and
others were able to unite a very divergent black community.”
Filming wrapped up on the independent movie in summer 2008 in and around
Shelby and Gastonia, N.C. Stuart’s wife, Mari, a Tony Award-winning theatrical
producer, will produce the film, which is being edited in Los Angeles.
Stuart said it’s tough to make an independent film, a little like “pushing water
up hill.”
“At the same time, it’s such a powerful story, that it keeps you motivated,” he
said. “It definitely gives you a reason to wake up in the morning.”
Stuart has been a loyal supporter of Carolina’s Writing for the Screen and Stage
Program. UNC student Jordan Harrell got a position through the University’s Hollywood
Interns Program, working on Stuart’s film in post-production in L.A.
So what advice would Stuart give to students who want to make it in this
business?
“The biggest thing I tell students is it doesn’t take long to learn the format of
screenwriting. It takes longer to have that life experience that will translate well into
film,” he said.
“Embrace life, take the most menial jobs, be constantly aware of the characters
around you, and work at your craft.” •
Online Extras
Read more about our conversation with Jeb Stuart, see Mike Wiley perform on
YouTube, and read more about Wiley’s work at http://college.unc.edu.
Vernon Tyson, Tim was 10 years old when
Marrow was murdered.
Serena Ebhardt, another Carolina
alum, will direct Wiley in “Blood Done
Sign My Name,” which will debut Nov.
6-9 at the Emma A. Sheafer Laboratory
Theater in Duke’s Bryan Center, then it will
become a part of Wiley’s touring repertoire.
Ebhardt (dramatic art ’88) and her husband
David zum Brunnen (RTVMP ’86) have
their own production company, EbzB
Productions.
“Mike could be very successful in com-mercial
theater on Broadway or in filmwork
in L.A., but those pieces would be cold
to him because he would just be speaking
words someone else wrote,” said Ebhardt.
“He performs with great passion, because it’s
not just rote. He’s living an integrated mis-sion
— his work is his life mission.”
Wiley has immersed himself fully in
writing the stage production of “Blood.”
He has delved into Tim Tyson’s audio
recordings, interview transcripts, court
records, newspaper clippings and notes about
the book, all now part of UNC’s Southern
Historical Collection. He has tape-recorded
interviews with Tim and Vernon Tyson,
activist Eddie McCoy and other people in
the book. Wiley also has traveled to Oxford
to visit Marrow’s grave and the site of the
country store where he was murdered.
Ray Dooley, head of UNC’s Profes-sional
Actor Training Program and one of
Wiley’s favorite Carolina professors, said he
uses Wiley as an example to inspire students.
“Mike is an artist in the best sense,
using his talent and training in service to
others,” Dooley said. “As Hamlet says, he
‘hold(s) the mirror up to nature,’ helping us
to see ourselves both individually and as a
society.”
Wiley has many hopes and dreams
for “Blood.” But perhaps the greatest is for
each audience member to think about his
place in the world, to impact, as the late poet
Thad Stem tells Tim Tyson, his own “little
postage stamp of soil.”
“I’d like each audience member to
walk away and reflect on who they are,
what they’ve done with their lives, how
they’ve helped, how they’ve contributed …
and how they can make their little postage
stamp of soil the best it can be.” •
…And another Alum Takes
Tim Tyson’s Memoir to the Big Screen
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
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Geeks
12 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
“ hat can I twist to my
purposes?” That may sound like a quote
from some maniacal movie villain, but
it’s the benign mantra of UNC computer
science professor Gary Bishop.
Engrossed earlier in his career with
such things as 3-D computer graphics and
six-dimensional tracking, Bishop spends
much of his time these days contemplating
how to adapt existing devices — preferably
cheap, simple, easily available devices — to
meet the needs of people with disabilities.
“Lots of assistive technology is very
expensive,” he explained. “I like to ask,
what can you do with things you can buy
at Amazon or Wal-Mart? What’s on the
Web, where you can distribute stuff for
free?” Though his mind generates possible
projects so quickly he uses part of his Web
site to track them, Bishop said he wants
“pull” — users with a particular problem to
solve — before he really dives into one.
His latest project, the Tar Heel
Reader Web site, lets children who might
not be able to manage a keyboard or hold
a book use switches to select and move
through easy-to-read online storybooks
that users create for them. The tales are told
through text, images gleaned online and
audio.
“It’s a very simple idea,” he said. “Kids
with severe disabilities often don’t talk and
can’t use their hands. So a kid will be 15
and hasn’t had the exposure to books that
a typical kid could have. When you can’t
talk and can’t write, it’s easy for people to
assume you’re profoundly retarded.”
Created in May in collaboration with
the Center for Literacy and Disability
Studies, Tar Heel Reader is a classic
example of Bishop doing something new
by the simplest means possible: he set
Tar Heel Reader up using the blogging
software WordPress. In large part because
it’s so easy to use, the project was an
immediate hit. Ten weeks after it was
launched, users from several countries
had created more than 400 titles in three
languages.
“Teachers are going completely
crazy with this thing,” Bishop said. They
have left online comments like, “This is
too fun.” And they’re making books on
all sorts of subjects for children of widely
ranging ages and interests.
For Bishop, the project embodies his
belief that he and his students should create
software and structure that empowers non-computer
users to make content.
“I don’t know what your student
wants to read,” he said. “So I have to get
out of the way and make it possible for you
to do it.”
“Tar Heel Reader is a great example
of democratizing innovation,” said Paul
Jones, director of ibiblio.org at UNC,
Computer science
profesor and students
invent gadgets for kids
with disabilities
B y K a t h l e e n K e a r n s Geeks Do Good
W
Issac Sandlin
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 13
which now hosts the project. “Gary saw a
new use [for existing software] and found
a community that would flock to that
solution and contribute to it.”
The element of collective creation
clearly energizes Bishop. When a teacher
wondered on the project’s blog whether
they could make a book, including the
audio portion, in Spanish, he looked into
it. “It turned out you could!” he said. He
found inexpensive commercial software
and got it working on the site. The teacher
went on to create several Spanish-language
books.
With Tar Heel Reader as with earlier
projects, Bishop and his students often
find solutions by modifying commercial
products that already exist, and they make
what they come up with available without
cost. They also regularly work with the
people their adaptations are intended to
help to make sure their innovations actually
do what their users want them to. Among
other things, this approach has helped
children with multiple disabilities use floor
pads from the popular video game Dance
Dance Revolution to control audio players
or to play educational games like one
Bishop and his team invented called Braille
Twister.
Bishop came to this work about seven
years ago, when a mid-life reassessment
coincided with a chance encounter.
“I was coming up on about 50 and
reflecting on my career,” he said, as he
thought about all the work he’d done
— “a bunch of patents, and papers, all the
usual stuff. I wanted to do something more
positive.”
The chance encounter was with Jason
Morris, then a graduate student in classics.
Morris, who is visually impaired, needed
better access to maps for his research, and
Bishop got his undergraduate students
working on the problem in collaboration
with the Ancient World Mapping Center.
The result evolved into the BATS (Blind
Audio Tactile Mapping System) project,
which lets users access maps through sound
and touch. A student who worked on it
told Bishop, “This is the first thing I’ve
done in college that matters.”
For Bishop himself, it was only the
beginning. Through Morris, he met a
teacher in the local schools who told him
that when classmates worked on computers
two or three times a week, blind children
had nothing to do. That spurred a project
called Hark the Sound, a set of sound-based
games that let children identify such
things as songs, food groups, even Wal-
Mart categories. (“You need to know
where to find the toothpaste in the store,”
Bishop pointed out.) The set-up isn’t
perfect — imagine an automated voice
tackling the name Lynyrd Skynyrd, for
instance — but it has been effective.
“Teachers tell me they have little guys
they haven’t been able to get to focus on
anything who’ll sit and play this game,”
Bishop reported with pleasure. As would
later be the case with Tar Heel Reader,
teachers took the model and created their
own games. A teacher in India wrote him
a letter in Braille to tell him how much her
students had gotten out of it. And a father
e-mailed him to say that because of a Hark
the Sound game, his daughter is probably
the only child in Britain who can name the
capitals of all the American states.
Once a year the computer science
department hosts Maze Day. Visually
impaired students in grades K-12 and their
parents and teachers visit the computer
science department to test the latest games
from Bishop and students.
Bishop is also among the first class
of four Faculty Engaged Scholars, who
are chosen by the Carolina Center for
Public Service and the Office of the
Vice Chancellor for Public Service and
Engagement to conduct projects that
connect faculty work with community
needs. With the help of a Kauffman
Faculty Fellowship, he is looking for
ways to sustain ongoing work developing
assistive technology.
Naturally, he’s got other ideas in the
hopper.
Bishop is working on a way for people
who can’t use a keyboard to enter text into
a Web browser. That way, they could send
e-mail, do their taxes, chat with friends,
watch videos on YouTube, write papers
for school. “By making one application
accessible to you, I’ll have opened up this
whole world of accessibility,” he said.
Bishop, who worked at Bell Labs
and Sun Microsystems between graduate
school at Carolina and his return in 1991
as a faculty member, jokes that he’d love to
make money with his innovations but can’t
figure out how. The tag line on his Web
site hints at a more likely motivation for his
work.
It reads, “Geeks making the world a
bit better.” •
Online Extras
Try out Tar Heel Reader, and
read more about Gary Bishop at
http://college.unc.edu.
LEFT: Computer science
professor Gary Bishop
describes how an adaptive
learning tool works.
BELOW: Bishop is in
the first class of Faculty
Engaged Scholars.
Dan Sears
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 15 9/11/08 4:34:59 PM
The Devil and
B y J B S h e l t o n
14 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
“The UNC job
is a miracle because
when I decided to
be a writer I assumed
I’d be poor forever.
There’s no reason in the
world why anyone should
make a living writing.
Writing is a struggle, and
has more to do with will
and desire than talent.”
Photo by Steve Exum; Illustration by Daniel Wallace
DThe eDveivl ial anndd DDaniel A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 16 9/11/08 4:35:06 PM
and
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 15
Writing at UNC, he played a distinguished
professor of economics in “Big Fish,” the
2003 Tim Burton fantasy film about a
father-son relationship, based on Wallace’s
first published novel. The role required
Wallace to shave his beard and drastically
trim his mustache; he may be the only
UNC professor pursued by a hairstylist on a
major motion picture set.
Nothing like a bestselling novel and
blockbuster movie to prevent a midlife
crisis. Wallace turns 50 in January 2009,
grateful for his first permanent job and able
to balance the writing career he values.
He’s come a long way from illustrating
refrigerator magnets and shelving volumes at
now defunct Franklin Street bookstores.
In his stories, Wallace tells tall tales from
his characters’ perspectives, recalling the
past, contemplating today, imagining the
future. He combines the literary stream-of-
consciousness of James Joyce with the
unique playfulness of characters having traits
both human and phantasmagorical.
• Writing 301: Creating the Backstory
In May 2008, Wallace graduated with
a BA in English from UNC-Chapel Hill, a
mere 30 years after he began his studies —
then promptly was appointed a distinguished
professor on July 1.
In his early 20s, Wallace joined the
family import/export business and worked
in Japan for three years before he resigned
or his dad fired him — an unresolved
family mystery. In the early ’80s, he moved
back to North Carolina, financially braving
the writing life, contemplating the eternal
verities within range of the Old Well.
His signature baseball cap shades a
Cheshire cat grin when he describes his wife
Laura, the love of his life, whom he first
encountered at Crooks Corner. He denies
having a muse, but said, “When I’m writing
about a beautiful woman, it’s Laura.”
Son Henry is 15, an avid reader of
his dad’s writings and believer in his dad’s
talents, but not necessarily in truths at family
dinner talks. He is the sole teen who can
most appropriately respond, “That sounds
like a ‘Big Fish’ story to me.”
• Writing 401: Love Being a Writer
Claire Williamson (journalism ’08)
twice played wordsmith in the creative
writing laugh factory run by DW, the
students’ nickname for the cool, Converse-wearing,
lauded author/teacher. “We tried
to be funny and insightful, with lofty hopes
of becoming His Favorite, a prize we sought
more than an A+,” said Williamson.
“Wow, I’m taking a class from the guy
who wrote Big Fish! Day one he made us
write about the worst thing we’ve ever done
— truth or lie. His creativity is unparalleled,
his imagination contagious,” recalled
Williamson. “What stuck with me most was
good storytellers must be good liars. DW’s
lie-telling comfort level makes him a fantastic
author, although I’d love to know whether
he actually crashed through a plate glass
window to save his mother-in-law.”
“I was taking myself and writing too
seriously,” she said. “He was the first person
to tell me it’s OK to write funny, insisting
it was my strength. Lifting the seriousness
burden made me love being a writer. He’s
funny — no, hilarious —critiquing and
encouraging us, while being unflinchingly
candid about his life and career.”
• Writing 501: Epilogue
And like the perfect ending to a good
story, Wallace is having a devil of a good
time. •
The J. Ross Macdonald Professorship honors
an emeritus distinguished professor of physics. The
professorship was funded via an estate gift in 1987
from Paul A. Johnston (B.A. ’50, J.D. ’52). The
39 Margaret and Paul A. Johnston Professorships
honor retired faculty members in the College.
Online Extras
Listen to an NPR interview with
Daniel Wallace at http://college.unc.edu.
With his newest novel, Daniel
Wallace entices readers into the eerie world
of Jeremiah Musgrove’s Chinese Circus in
Mr. Sebastian and The Negro Magician.
Right off, J.J. the Barker introduces
the magician of the title, Henry Walker,
as “a man who has met the devil himself
— the devil himself! — and come away with
Lucifer’s darkest secrets, secrets that were he
to tell would melt your very soul. But he
will show, not tell. And that is where the
magic lies.”
• Writing 101: Path and Flow
Wallace, who has taught creative
writing in UNC’s College of Arts and
Sciences for six years, believes “writing is
difficult and beautiful because every writer
must find his own path.”
“The UNC job is a miracle because
when I decided to be a writer I assumed I’d
be poor forever,” Wallace added. “There’s
no reason in the world why anyone should
make a living writing. Writing is a struggle,
and has more to do with will and desire than
talent.” The struggle, however, is certainly
mitigated by the rewards. “When I get in the
flow, hours pass like minutes. I love that.”
Wallace is self-disciplined in taking the
advice he gives to students: Write every day.
Let the words first come to mind, without
formality or sentence structure. Do away
with preconceived notions about what the
story will turn out to be. Surrender yourself
to 24-hour creative sprints.
He spends most mornings at his desk
and keeps several projects going at once.
Currently, he’s working on another novel,
a screenplay, more than one short story, and
he occasionally writes a new entry on his
blog at www.danielwallace.org. (Much to his
interviewer’s disappointment, he stubbornly
refuses to reveal the secrets to the magic
tricks posted on his Web site.)
• Writing 201: Get a Movie Deal
Before Wallace became the J. Ross
Macdonald Professor of English and Creative
anndd DDaniel aWnailelal ceWallace
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 17 9/11/08 4:35:09 PM
16 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
‘Going to the Show’
Historian chronicles N.C. movie-going
through new digital archive
B y K i m W e a v e r S p u r r ’ 8 8
Steve Exum
Historian Robert Allen at the
Carolina Theatre in Durham, N.C.
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 18 9/11/08 4:35:15 PM
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 17
ith DVDs available through
Netflix, Blockbuster and your local
supermarket, watching movies these days
often means staying home. Indeed, since
1991, Hollywood has been making more
money from people buying movies than
going to the theater, according to Robert
Allen, UNC’s James Logan Godfrey
Professor in American studies, history and
communication studies.
Today, “movies have become things
that we own, hold and control,” Allen said.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Going to the movies used to be a
very social experience. In many towns,
movie theaters were frequently the only
places where commercial entertainment
was presented on a regular basis. For many
people, which movie they saw was not as
important as the experience of going to the
theater. Allen, who has been studying popular
entertainment forms for more than 30 years,
is documenting the Southern movie-going
experience in the early 20th century — and
he’s using digital technology to study and
publicly share what he’s learning.
In a groundbreaking research project,
Allen is collaborating with digital publishing
experts and special collections archivists in
UNC’s Wilson Library to create an online,
interactive digital collection of maps, photos,
postcards, newspaper clippings, architectural
drawings, city directory listings and historical
commentary that will illuminate and
reconstruct cultural and social life in the first
three decades of the 20th century in North
Carolina. It will be the first statewide database
to document the experience of movie-going.
Allen was among only seven scholars
out of 110 to be awarded inaugural Digital
Humanities Fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The
project was recognized as an NEH “We the
People” project for promoting knowledge
and understanding of American history and
culture. It has also received grants from the
U.S. Library Services and Technology Act,
administered through the State Library of
North Carolina, as well as support from
UNC’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for
Research and the University Program in
Cultural Studies.
The project, “Going to the Show,”
will also highlight the complex relationships
among race, space
and movie culture by
shining a spotlight on the
African-American movie-going
experience. Racial
“intermixing” in movie
theaters was prevented by
architectural and admission
policies enforced by all-white
theaters in North Carolina for
more than 60 years. In some
communities, separate movie theaters were
operated for African-Americans. “Going to
the Show” will include the first statewide
inventory of African-American movie
theaters from the 1910s through the 1950s.
“We’re looking very specifically at the
ways in which race not only conditioned
the experience of movie-going for all North
Carolinians, but how race conditioned the
experience of urban life,” said Allen, who has
been teaching at Carolina since 1979. “Race
was a factor in people’s lives and identities
that was magnified enormously when they
went downtown, because downtowns were
the place where the maintenance of racial
power was the most intensely emphasized.”
“Going to the Show” will be part
of Documenting the American South
(DocSouth), a UNC digital archive begun in
1995 that provides free online access to texts,
images and audio files related to southern
history, literature and culture. Currently
DocSouth includes 11 thematic collections
of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters,
oral history interviews and songs. DocSouth
is a project of the Carolina Digital Library
and Archives (CDLA), which is housed on
the first floor of Wilson Library. The new
“Going to the Show” collection, which will
cover the period 1896 to 1930, is slated to
debut in late 2008-early 2009.
Natasha Smith, head of DocSouth and
CDLA digital publishing and the project
director for “Going to the Show,” envisions
that the archive, which will include an
inventory of more than 1,000 movie theaters,
will attract new users to DocSouth.
“When I met with Bobby to talk about
his vision, it really clicked. What appealed
to me was the topic of movie-going,” she
said. “I also thought that we could use the
framework and infrastructure of this project
for other scholars’ research and teaching.”
Allen turned to UNC Libraries’ North
Carolina Collection — the largest collection
of published materials about a state in the
country — and the Southern Historical
Collection — the largest manuscript
collection about the South — where he
found a unique array of resources that initially
had absolutely nothing to do with movies.
The North Carolina Collection has a
comprehensive archive of N.C. Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps for the period 1896 to 1922.
These large-scale color map sets, produced
at about five-year intervals for more than
100 towns and cities in the state, represented
every building in the central business districts,
including dimensions, building materials and
uses. The Sanborn maps also coded building
use by race; movie theaters operated for
African-Americans were noted as “colored”
theaters.
“Urban historians know the Sanborn
maps very well; they’re a valuable tool,” Allen
said. “I went back to the first article that I had
ever written on movie-going in New York
City published in 1979, and it’s the first place
I cited a Sanborn Map as a reference.”
Allen, who will also be writing a
monograph on “Going to the Show,”
recalled how difficult it used to be to make
the maps easily accessible to a broad audience.
“I remember having to go to a Library
of Congress map storage facility in Alexandria,
Va., and take 35 millimeter pictures of the
maps standing on a chair,” he said.
Through his work with digital librarians
and graduate students in UNC’s School of
Information and Library Science (SILS), Allen
and a project team will make many of the
Sanborn maps accessible online.
They are digitizing some 750 Sanborn
maps for 45 towns and cities in North
Carolina. The multiple map pages for each
continued
This postcard shows a movie
screen in the surf at Lumina in Wrightsville Beach.
W
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 19 9/11/08 4:35:24 PM
18 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
city are being digitally “stitched” together,
forming a composite image of a town at a
particular moment in its history. The maps
will then be “geo-referenced,” so that users
may overlay a Sanborn map via Google
Earth onto an up-to-date satellite image
for contemporary views of a particular city
or town. Users can toggle back and forth
between an old Sanborn map and a current
view of a city.
“Digitizing and geo-referencing of
these maps gives a prismatic quality to the
project: The spatial data we’re using for
our movie-going project can also make
visible other aspects of social, cultural and
economic history,” Allen said.
Kevin Eckhardt, a research assistant
on the project, is a second-year graduate
student in SILS who developed the digital
map-stitching technique.
“We have had to look at all the
puzzle pieces and put things together. This
sometimes includes having to identify and
locate streets that have disappeared or whose
names have changed,” Eckhardt said.
Because Wilmington was the largest
city in North Carolina at the time, and
also featured the first movie theater — the
Bijou, which opened in 1906 — the project
will focus on the city as a case study. Allen
found a treasure trove of materials, five
boxes of newspaper clippings on movie
theaters, which are part of the Bill Reaves
Collection of the New Hanover County
Public Library. He’s been combing through
the boxes, and finding clippings to use in
the archive, like an advertisement for The
Odeon, the second movie theater to open
in Wilmington four months after the Bijou.
The Odeon boasted: “New White Moving
Picture Theater Now Open.”
Beverly Tetterton, special collections
librarian at the New Hanover County
Public Library, first introduced Allen to the
Bill Reaves collection.
“Bill was a local historian who worked
for the Wilmington Morning Star, and they
were getting rid of their bound newspapers,
back to 1867,” she said. “Bill was instructed
to take them to the dump, so he had them
taken to his house on Third Street, where
he clipped newspapers for more than 25
years. Upon Bill’s passing, he gave the entire
collection to the library.”
Allen also used the North Carolina
Collection’s massive
archive of city directories
to compile historical
information for the
project. The unique
database of movie
exhibition sites was
initially compiled
two years ago from
information about
theater names,
addresses, owner-ship,
management
and racial orienta-tion
contained
in hundreds of
city directories
published between 1896 and 1930. In
the last year, the UNC Libraries’ Digital
Production Center has acquired a new
machine called the Scribe that can digitize
hundreds of book pages per hour. City
directories for N.C. towns and cities were
selected to be among the first volumes to
be digitized, and “Going to the Show” will
benefit from this new electronic resource.
Frank O’Hale first used the North
Carolina Collection in the fall of 2007 as
a student in Allen’s First Year Seminar on
family history and social change in America.
In the summer, he combed through 8,000
postcards in the North Carolina Collection
for photos showing early 20th century
movie theaters and the streets on which they
were located. Two more of Allen’s students
searched through newspapers from the
early 20th century for articles and ads about
early movie theaters. There’s a postcard, for
instance, of Lumina, an outdoor pavilion in
Wrightsville Beach, N.C., which showed
motion pictures in the ocean — via a large
outdoor movie screen erected in the surf.
The photos will also be geo-referenced and
linked to the Sanborn map pages.
In some respects the project is forging
its own path in the frontier of digital
humanities. Sanborn maps have been
employed in other historical projects, but
“Going to the Show” is among the first
projects to present geo-referenced Sanborn
maps online, and it is developing one of
the most innovative representations of
historic maps in North Carolina. No other
project has brought together photographs,
newspapers, city directories, Sanborn
maps and other
sources to document
the way movie-going
became one of the most
important social practices
of the early 20th century.
Allen and the digital project
team are still designing
the look of the final digital
collection. They want to
try to build in a “tell us your
story” link on each page so
that users can add their own
recollections of movie-going.
The team is also working
on ways to reflect the fact that,
particularly in the time period
covered by the project, movie-going often
included music and other forms of live
entertainment as well. And as the largest
secular meeting place in many small towns,
movie theaters often hosted high school
graduations, local beauty pageants, religious
services, talent shows and other events.
In partnership with UNC’s School of
Education, Allen and the project team will
also develop learning materials for North
Carolina K-12 classrooms. Lessons will
provide teachers and students with a better
understanding of the social climate of the
South during this era.
Allen said that his first foray into digital
research and publication has been one of the
most gratifying and exciting experiences of
his career.
“When a book is published, it’s
finished, but when you produce a Web
site, it’s the beginning of an open-ended
exchange with tens of thousands of people
around the world,” he said. “Academic
books have a fairly limited reach. I don’t go
to too many airport bookstores and see my
books.”
“This project will be used by the
87-year-old woman in Benson, N.C.,
who remembers going to the movie theater
there and by a scholar who’s been
researching movie-going in Beijing,
China, for 30 years.” •
Online Extras
Read more about Allen’s own movie-going
experience, and hear him discuss the
project. More on the Bijou Theater and
DocSouth — all at http://college.unc.edu.
The Bijou Theater
(circa 1912) in Wilmington.
Profile
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 20 9/11/08 4:35:34 PM
Southern
Culture Calling
John Hubbell helps to
shape new museums
honoring B.B. King
and Earl Scruggs
By Pamela Babcock
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 19
Growing up in the San Francisco
Bay area in the early 1980s, John Hubbell
and his best friend, Craig Brewer, a
filmmaker today best known as director of
“Hustle & Flow,” listened to all kinds of
music — from Muddy Waters to Prince.
“We were into everything,” Hubbell
recalled.
Unlike other kids, Hubbell couldn’t
just listen to ZZ Top. When he found
out the trio hailed from Texas, he openly
wondered: What’s informing these guys
and how did this oddity manifest? Likewise,
he didn’t have to dig far to learn that Waters
and so many great Southern bluesmen had
influenced The Rolling Stones.
“It was that classic inquisitive kid-in-
the record store thing,” Hubbell said.
“Craig and I both heard [Water’s] ‘Mannish
Boy’ and were marveled by it. As aspiring
writers, I think we both knew we were
tapping the root as we listened.”
These days, Hubbell is continuing
to tap the root and his abiding interest
in Southern culture. After a decade-long
career as a newspaper journalist, Hubbell
got an M.A. in folklore in 2007 from
Carolina and today runs Old Bridge Media,
a Memphis, Tenn., writing, editing and
production firm.
Hubbell is a consultant to the new
B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive
Center in Indianola, Miss. He helped write
and shape the text visitors will read as well
as interactive exhibits, documentaries,
education programs and Web-based
material. Closer to Carolina, Hubbell is
working with UNC’s Center for the Study
of the American South on the planned Earl
Scruggs Center in Shelby, N.C.
“John really is a unique person because
he is a very gifted writer, and he’s also very
knowledgeable about the American South
and its cultural traditions,” said Bill Ferris,
senior associate director of the Center, the
Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of
History and Hubbell’s thesis adviser. Those
traits make Hubbell an ideal resource for
both projects, he added.
“He is able to capture the spirit of
both those types of music — blues and
bluegrass — in ways that are accessible to
the American public.”
Growing up in Vallejo, Calif., Hubbell
always knew he’d be a journalist and said
“writing was always my passport.”
Armed with a journalism degree from
California Polytechnic State University in
1996, Hubbell moved to Memphis to work
as a reporter and later was managing editor
for The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus,
Miss.
After a brief stint at Microsoft, Hubbell
landed at The Associated Press in 1998,
most recently as editor on the national
desk in New York. In 2000, Hubbell
began a five-year stint at the San Francisco
Chronicle, where he covered Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Hubbell learned pretty quickly that
he didn’t want to spend his life covering
politics. And that’s when Carolina
beckoned.
“Being in the folklore program really
helped me see how I could take my career
in a new direction,” said Hubbell, whose
coursework emphasized Southern music
and regional vernacular traditions.
As a consultant on the King Museum,
Hubbell conducted interviews for
documentaries, went on film shoots and
met King twice. The museum focuses
on King’s life and stories of the Delta,
including its history and music, social
mores and race relations, and literature and
legends.
“He’s very funny and has an amazing
love for people that really shines through in
a way that I don’t know many people have,
let alone celebrities of that stature,” Hubbell
said of King.
“We try, whenever possible, to tell
the story from B.B.’s voice or the voices in
the community,” he added. “That’s what
folklore is about — everyday people and
their stories.”
Hubbell’s business is based in his
home, an old bungalow in mid-town
Memphis. His office walls are lined with
quotes from people he’s interviewed over
the years.
In addition to being a New York Times
contributor, Hubbell is also working on
Patch My Heart, a book about John Gary
Williams, the lead singer of the defunct soul
group “The Mad Lads.”
“The important thing about doing
this work is that you are the conduit and
you enable stories to be told,” Hubbell said.
“It’s about shining light where it needs to
shine — and helping people appreciate the
reality and the wholeness of people.” •
Online Extras
Read more about John Hubbell and
the B.B. King and Earl Scruggs Museums at
http://college.unc.edu.
Alan Spearman
ABOVE: John Hubbell
(left) chats with blues
legend B.B. King.
LEFT: John Hubbell at
a saloon in Memphis
favored by musicians.
Profile P r o f i l e
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 21 9/11/08 4:35:39 PM
Highlights
best. With this professorship, I hope to
inspire the next generation of writers to
embrace that purpose.”
Shuping-Russell, managing director
at the investment firm BlackRock in New
York City, is a member of the UNC
Board of Trustees, the UNC Foundation
Investment Fund Co. Board of Directors
and a former member of the Board of
Directors of UNC Health Care. She earned
a bachelor’s degree in English and political
science at Carolina in 1977 and holds a
master’s in business administration from
Columbia University.
The gift was made on
July 1, 2008, the first day
of the new administration
of Chancellor Holden
Thorp, former dean of
the College of Arts and
Sciences.
“This gift gets my
job as chancellor off to a
great start, and I’ll always
feel a special gratitude to
Sallie,” said Thorp. “The
rigorous program and
intimate engagement with
faculty in creative writing
embody the commitments
to originality and
undergraduate experience that define
Carolina. Sallie’s gift shows not only her
extraordinary generosity, but also her
understanding of our deepest values.”
The “Living Writers” course will be
the Creative Writing Program’s first and
only semester-length class arranged entirely
around a series of visiting writers and their
works, making it “a model for the study
and practice of contemporary literature,”
said Michael McFee, director and professor
of creative writing at Carolina.
“This kind of close contact with
authors, especially when students are
A major gift to the College of Arts
and Sciences will enable creative writing
students to study with some of the nation’s
most notable writers.
The gift from Sallie Shuping-Russell
of Chapel Hill will fund an innovative
new course featuring the work of active
writers who will hold a distinguished
visiting professorship within the Creative
Writing Program. The program is part of
the department of English and comparative
literature.
The $666,000 gift qualifies for a
$334,000 grant from
the North Carolina
Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust,
bringing its total value
to $1 million. The state
fund, established in 1985
by the N.C. General
Assembly, provides
matching grants to recruit
and retain outstanding
faculty.
The gift will create
the Sallie Shuping-
Russell Distinguished
Visiting Professorship.
Starting in the fall
of 2009, five to six
outstanding writers will come to campus
to participate in the regularly scheduled
course, “Living Writers,” which will honor
her mother, Margaret R. Shuping, who
graduated from UNC in 1944 with a
degree in journalism. The visiting professors
also will give public readings for the
University community.
“My career has been spent financing
new technologies,” Shuping-Russell said.
“However, as science rolls forward, I want
to make sure we don’t lose sight of the
human experience of dealing with life in
these times. That is what literature does
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
familiar with their work, gives young writers
the chance to have extended conversations
with those practicing the art and craft to
which they aspire,” McFee said.
The course also will further UNC’s
overall mission to give students a liberal arts
education, Shuping-Russell said.
“The Creative Writing Program
at Carolina is unique in its focus within
undergraduate studies,” she said. “It allows
the University to be a leader in interpreting
the human condition as other parts of the
institution unfold the genetic structure of
our being.”
“With today’s rapid scientific
discovery, our literary capacity has to
maintain its pace. It is my hope that this gift
will help secure this important mission for
Carolina.”
Shuping-Russell’s gift builds on several
other privately funded programs in creative
writing at Carolina. These include the
Thomas Wolfe Scholarship, the Blanche
Britt Armfield Poetry Series, the Morgan
Writer-in-Residence Program, the Doris
Betts Distinguished Professorship and other
resources that have enabled the Creative
Writing Program to bring a wide range
of writers to campus to interact with
undergraduate students and the community.
“We in creative writing are
extraordinarily grateful to Sallie Shuping-
Russell,” McFee said. “This is a terrific
opportunity for us and for Carolina.” •
20 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
ABOVE: Sallie Shuping-Russell
Living Writers
Creative writing students to study with
visiting authors thanks to major gift
By Scott Ragland ’87
“With today’s rapid
scientific discovery,
our literary capacity
has to maintain its pace.
It is my hope that this
gift will help secure this
important mission
[ for Carolina.�� ]
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 21
Pizza will never look the same to
students in the Honors course they call
“Eats 101.”
For Catherine Williams, it was the best
class she took at Carolina.
“It was a great example of what an
Honors course ought to do. It brought
together so many academic disciplines
— health and nutrition, archaeology and
environmental history, anthropology and
economics — that it was truly impossible
not to engage with some part of the
syllabus,” said Williams, of Matthews, N.C.,
who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in May
2008.
Now, twice as many first-year
students, or 10 percent of each entering
class, will have the chance to take similarly
engaging courses, and join one of the
nation’s top Honors programs.
Four major gifts in the past year
totaling $21.5 million — including state
matches from the Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust — will enable the
Honors Program in the College of Arts and
Sciences to invite nearly 400 students in the
Class of 2012 to participate. The gifts fund
faculty positions in high-priority areas of
the College to teach Honors courses. They
also will increase the University’s yield of
high-ability students, many of whom are
attracted to Carolina because of the Honors
Program.
In July, the Hyde Family Foundations,
with support from Pitt ’65 and Barbara ’83
Hyde, made a $2 million capstone gift to
complete the goal of doubling first-year
invitations to the Honors Program. Two
months earlier, the William R. Kenan Jr.
Charitable Trust made a $6 million gift
to create six $1.5 million endowments,
including $500,000 in state matches
for each, to support a minimum of six
assistant or associate professors who will
be designated as William R. Kenan Jr.
Seeing Double
New gifts enable Honors to invite twice
as many first-year students to program
By Del Helton
Fellows or William
R. Kenan Jr. Scholars.
The Morehead-
Cain Foundation
in December 2007
created the Mary H.
Cain Distinguished
Professorship in
Art History, resulting in a $2 million
endowment, including state match, that
will add four Honors courses in art history.
In September 2007, an anonymous
donor gave $5 million to fund five new
professorships named for alumni Peter T.
Grauer and William B. Harrison.
For the Kenan Trust, the gift served
to recognize past and present chancellors.
“This gift reflects the desire of the
Kenan Trust to pay tribute to Chancellor
Moeser for the leadership he has provided
to Carolina over the past eight years, and
to his desire to double the number of
participants in the Honors Program,” said
Richard M. Krasno, executive director of
the Kenan Trust. “We also want to signal
our confidence in Chancellor Thorp, who
has been a tremendous champion for the
Honors Program as dean of the College
of Arts and Sciences. These are two great
leaders for the University, and we are
proud that this gift honors them both.”
The Hyde Family Foundations’ gift
creates two $1.5 million endowments,
each augmented by the state match of
$500,000, and will support a minimum of
two assistant or associate professors in the
College.
“In response to Chancellor Moeser’s
challenge to trustees to help him complete
the goal of doubling the Honors Program,
and in honor of Chancellor [Holden]
Thorp, we are thrilled to support the
expansion of the Honors Program and
follow the leadership of the Kenan Trust,”
said Barbara Hyde, president of the J.R.
Hyde Family Foundation of Memphis,
Tenn. Hyde serves on the University’s
Board of Trustees. “We believe the gift
to Honors is a great complement to our
support of faculty through the Institute for
the Arts and Humanities. As Chancellor
Thorp recently said, ‘Carolina is the best
place to teach, discover and learn.’ We hope
this gift helps faculty and students do all
three.”
Joshua Knobe, assistant professor of
philosophy, recalled at least two inspired
students from his Honors classes. One
student was so enthused about a class
discussion on the concept of eudaimonia
(state of happiness and well-being), that he
wrote a rock song about it.
“Another student in my Honors class
became so intrigued with the subject of
moral cognition, or how people make
judgments, that he developed his own
hypothesis, then applied to work as a
researcher. It was a pretty advanced topic for
a first-year student.”
Knobe said he can often let Honors
students guide discussions, a practice that
worked well for Williams and her classmates
in the social sciences Honors course.
“Dr. [Jim] Ferguson taught us to
take notice of the rich informational
environment we live in by sending us news
stories and anecdotes that related to our
studies,” said Williams. “The 14 of us in the
class really became a family, and all of us felt
comfortable to explore the subject in our
own way, something that no other class has
done for me.” •
ABOVE: New gifts will enable twice as many first-year students to join Honors.
Dan Sears
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s Highlights
22 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
professor of political science at the
University of Missouri-St. Louis.
When he was a graduate student
in political science at UNC, Uhlman’s
studies were supported by a National
Science Foundation fellowship. Now as
a board member of the Arts and Sciences
Foundation, Uhlman understands the
importance of financial support for
graduate students. Fellowships and other
forms of support are often the determining
factor in a graduate student’s decision to
study at
Carolina.
“There
is a market-place
out
there for
the best
talent in graduate schools, and the best
students have the most choices,” Uhlman
said. “Every department would like to
attract the strongest entering class of
students.”
Uhlman has pledged $1 million
to the College of Arts and Sciences to
support graduate students in political
science through The Thomas M. Uhlman
Graduate Fund in Political Science. The
endowed fund will have a wide-ranging
impact by supporting “three legs of the
stool”: graduate fellowships, summer
research fellowships and travel awards.
Recipients will be selected through a
competitive process, with a minimum of
15 awards given each year beginning in
2009-2010.
Uhlman said it was important to him
not only to support fellowships, but also
summer research and opportunities for
students to travel to present their research
at conferences.
“As a graduate student, I don’t think
I ever traveled to a professional meeting to
present my research, so I’m trying to create
Tom Uhlman has founded companies,
managed a presidential commission, led a
major effort at the U.S. Department of Edu-cation
and been a university professor.
He credits his time at Carolina, where
he earned double degrees in political science
(a master’s in 1971 and a doctorate in 1975)
with helping him to meet all the different
challenges in his career.
“Carolina was really where I came of
age intellectually. It was a very challenging
environment, but at the same time
supportive,
which was
great,” said
Uhlman of
Madison,
N.J., who is a
founder and
managing partner of New Venture Partners
LLC. “My education was a wonderful
platform for me in my career, which has
led off in a number of different directions. I
always felt well-prepared. [At UNC], I got a
set of general tools and skills to think about
problems, to work with complex issues and
to be confident I could ask questions and
come up with the right course of action.”
Uhlman, who also has a master’s in
business from Stanford University, has
held corporate, government and academic
positions. Prior to starting New Venture
Partners, an early stage technology-focused
venture capital firm, he served as president
of Lucent Technologies’ New Ventures
Group from 1997-2001. Uhlman and his
colleagues have created more than 50 new
technology businesses since 1997.
In 1983-84, Uhlman managed the
President’s Commission on Industrial
Competitiveness on behalf of the CEO
of Hewlett-Packard. In 1981-82, he was
director of productivity improvement at
the U.S. Department of Education. And
he spent time as an assistant and associate
a menu of opportunities that the department
and the director of graduate studies can
select from to award to students,” he said.
“Graduate students are an indispensable
part of an excellent department. They
inspire and help faculty in their research,
and at UNC they play an integral role in
the education of undergraduates,” said
Evelyne Huber, chair of the political science
department. “The impact of Tom Uhlman’s
gift will be both broad and deep, reaching
roughly a quarter of our graduate students
each year, or the overwhelming majority of
our graduate students at some point during
their course of study.”
The political science department will
also host an Uhlman Symposium each
academic year, where recipients of the three
types of Uhlman awards will present their
research.
“The symposium is an intellectual,
social and team-building exercise that will
enable the students to get in front of their
peers and explain their work,” Uhlman said.
Uhlman said his support of graduate
students in political science is a “way of
giving back to the institution that has meant
so much to me.”
“Many times people have asked
me, ‘How did it work out going from
political science to venture capital to
heading a presidential commission?’ A lot
of it I attribute to the intellectual rigor and
problem-solving I experienced at UNC.” •
Triple Impact for Political Science
$1 million gift supports graduate fellowships,
research and travel awards
By Kim Weaver Spurr ’88
“There is a marketplace out there for the best talent
in graduate schools, and the best students have the
most choices. Every department would like to attract
the strongest entering class of students.”
{ — Tom Uhlman }
ABOVE: Tom Uhlman
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 23
In the 1940s, it was the newest, biggest,
most technologically advanced bomber ever
commissioned by the U.S. Army Air Force
— the B-29 Superfortress. Many men were
afraid to fly it: Pilots oohed and aahed at its
size, but shied away from the cockpit of a
plane notorious for engine fires.
In what became aviation history,
then-Colonel Paul Tibbets — eventual
captain of the B-29 Enola Gay — trained
two Women’s Airforce Service Pilots to fly
demonstration tours on the Superfortress.
One-by-one, senior pilots signed on while a
young flyboy from eastern North Carolina
eagerly waited his turn — John Randolph
“J.R.” Parker.
From the marshes of New Bern by way
of Carolina’s Class of ’38 and West Point,
J.R. Parker left the Army Air Force without
deployment on the B-29, but the training
stuck. He joined multi-national Fluor
Corporation as a mechanical engineer for
oil rigs, putting to use his pilot
training and an education in
math, physics and engineering
earned at Carolina. Though
Parker left the University
before graduation, his love for
the school stayed with him
throughout a life lived in the
far corners of the world.
“He was so dedicated to Carolina that
sometimes I thought it was an obsession
with him,” said Ed Duer of Oriental, N.C.,
a long-time friend and executor of J.R.
and Louise Parker’s estate — an estate that
recently created the John R. and Louise
S. Parker Distinguished Professorships in
physics, mathematics and computer science
in the College of Arts and Sciences. Each
professorship was funded with a gift of
about $1,333,000, and will be matched
with $667,000 in grants from the state’s
Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust
Fund, creating a $2 million endowment
One Pilot’s Legacy
Parker estate creates three
$2 million professorships
By Chrys Bullard ’76
for each of the three
professorships.
Bruce Carney,
interim dean of the
College and Samuel
Baron Professor of
Astronomy, expressed
deep gratitude for the
Parkers’ gift on behalf of his colleagues.
“These new professorships come at a
most opportune time,” Carney said. “The
combination of the Parker professorships
and the world-class facilities within our
new science complex will help us attract
the very best faculty. We have already
been fortunate to attract our first Parker
professor, John F. Wilkerson, former
professor of physics and associate vice
provost for research at the University of
Washington. He will lead a new, large
research effort at the interface of neutrino
physics and cosmology.”
With the passion of a true-blue Tar
Heel, the discipline of a pilot and the focus
of an engineer, J.R. Parker, and his wife
Louise, gave to two Carolina institutions
throughout their lifetimes: the University
Library and the College of Arts and
Sciences. On the advice of their financial
adviser and working with Michele
Fletcher, director of development for the
University Library, and June Steel, former
director of planned and regional gifts in the
Office of University Development (now
associate vice chancellor of advancement
services), the Parkers transferred Fluor
Corporation stock to Carolina’s pooled
income fund, received quarterly income
for life and avoided capital gains taxes.
Another outright gift of Fluor stock created
the professorships fund. During the Parkers’
lifetimes, income from the fund benefited
the University Library, but after their deaths
— J.R. in 2002 and Louise in 2007 — the
gift reverted to the College of Arts and
Sciences along with the bulk of their estate.
“[J.R.] loved the University, and
he loved mathematics, physics and
engineering,” said Duer, who with his wife,
Lee, took care of the Parkers during their
final illnesses. “He tutored math students at
Carolina to help pay his college
expenses, and I’m sure that’s
why he chose to make the gifts
he did.”
Duer describes J.R. as, “a
magnificent person — very
principled, with a marvelous
sense of humor.” After he
and Louise retired to Oriental, J.R. put
his engineering skills and sense of humor
to work building complex but humane
squirrel traps. “When he caught one,” Duer
said, “he’d paint its tail red, carry it miles
from his house and turn it loose.”
During their long friendship, Duer
grew to understand the Parkers’ special
affection for Carolina. He met Fletcher,
Steel and later Associate Director of Gift
Planning Candace Clark.
“The care [the Parkers] received from
everyone, their exceptional interest in J.R.
and Louise … There’s a feeling of family at
UNC. A closely knit family.” •
ABOVE: The late Louise (left) and J.R. Parker
With the passion of a true-blue Tar Heel,
the discipline of a pilot and the focus of an engineer,
J.R. Parker, and his wife Louise, gave to two Carolina
institutions throughout their lifetimes: the University
Library and the College of Arts and Sciences. ( )
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 25 9/11/08 4:36:05 PM
Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Jewish studies
professorship
named for Eizenstat
A $1.5 million distinguished
professorship in Jewish studies will be
named in honor of alumnus Stuart E.
Eizenstat, who served as the lead negotiator
for Holocaust reparation agreements and
deputy secretary of the treasury during the
Clinton administration.
The Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Distinguished Professorship in Jewish History
and Culture will be in the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies in the College. David
M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group in
Washington, D.C., has pledged $500,000 to help establish the professorship.
In addition to the Rubenstein gift, the professorship is being funded by
additional contributions totaling more than $500,000 from private donors, and
it will be eligible for $500,000 in matching funds from the N.C. Distinguished
Professors Endowment Trust Fund.
Eizenstat helped acquire more than $8 billion in compensation from
European companies for victims of the Holocaust and Nazi era.
Rubenstein was deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during
the Carter administration, when Eizenstat served as chief domestic policy adviser
and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff.
Eizenstat graduated from UNC in 1964 Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude
with a degree in political science. He also received an honorary degree from
the University and was the commencement speaker in 2000. He is currently a
partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm, Covington and Burling LLP. •
German doctoral students on
campus may soon be wearing both Duke
and Carolina blue.
UNC and Duke University will
combine their German doctoral program,
beginning in fall 2009.
The unique program, conceived and
proposed by faculty, will be called the
Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in
German Studies. Doctoral students will
apply to a single program, take courses at
both UNC and Duke, and their degrees
will come from both universities.
The new merged graduate program will
draw on one of the largest German studies
faculty in the country and the considerable
intellectual, educational and cultural resources
of both institutions — amid national reports
that some German language programs
around the country are shutting down.
The 16 core German studies faculty
will represent all branches of research in the
field. Admission will be competitive and is
limited to about seven students per year.
“The new joint program will do more
than combine the forces of two excellent
departments,” said Clayton Koelb, chair of
the German Languages department. “It
will create a new enterprise able to offer
students resources and opportunities that
neither institution alone could provide.”
Undergraduate German programs at
the two schools will continue to remain
separate. •
Stuart E. Eizenstat
Dan Sears
Examining diversity,
conformity in
Muslim societies
A historian and a geographer
are teaming up to study diversity and
conformity in Muslim societies through
a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation.
There are substantial variations
among Muslims, their politics and
even their religious practices, say Sarah
Shields, an associate professor of history,
and Banu
Gökariksel, an
assistant professor
of geography.
Often, however,
scholars and
policymakers
portray a
uniform “Islam.”
Through a
$150,000 Mellon
grant, the UNC
researchers will
develop an
interdisciplinary
“Sawyer Seminar” series in 2009-
2010 that will explore the tensions
between diversity and conformity,
between tolerance and orthodoxy, in
Muslim societies. The seminars will
include faculty and students from all
of the Triangle universities and other
N.C. schools, drawing from scholars
who study history, politics, music, art,
architecture, religion and law. Shields
and Gökariksel hope that this broad,
inclusive approach will result in a richer,
multi-dimensional understanding of
Muslim societies.
The grant will also support a post-doctoral
researcher to spend a year at
UNC, and it will fund two graduate
students’ doctoral research for the year.
It will provide funding to bring outside
scholars to participate in workshops
during the seminar year. •
Sarah Shields
Highlights
24 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Duke, UNC join forces in german
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Highlights H i g h l i g h t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 25
Genetics plus social factors
linked to teen violence
Sociologists exploring the link between adolescent delinquen-cy
and genetics have identified three genes that appear to play a role
in whether a child becomes involved in serious and violent crime.
What’s more, the impact those genes have appears to be
triggered or suppressed by social influences such as family, friends
and school.
Research led by UNC sociologist Guang Guo,
one of the first to link molecular genetic variants to
adolescent delinquency, sheds light on why some
individuals become serious and violent delinquents
— while others with a similar genetic makeup do not.
The study, co-authored by UNC doctoral students
Michael Roettger and Tianji Cai, was published in
American Sociological Review.
Previous behavioral studies examining gene-environment
interactions have looked at the
relationship of genes to a single factor such as child
abuse or stress. Here, UNC researchers systematically
examined several layers of social context, such as family
dynamics, peer relations and school-related variables.
“Positive social influences appear to reduce the delinquency-increasing
effect of a genetic variant, whereas the effect of these
genetic variants is amplified in the absence of social controls,” said
Guo, who is also a faculty fellow at the UNC Carolina Population
Center and the Carolina Center for Genomic Sciences.
“Our research confirms that genetic effects are not
deterministic,” Guo said. “Gene expression may depend heavily
on the environment.” •
UNC technology Enrolled in
hunt for life on Mars
Scientists looking for evidence of life on Mars are relying on
technology invented by UNC researchers.
A team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., has created a device for use on the European ExoMars
Rover mission scheduled for launch in 2013.
The microfluidic or “lab-on-a-chip” device — which takes
its name from the fact that the credit-card
sized invention can perform multiple detailed
laboratory tests — could be used to analyze
Martian soil and rock for traces of biological
compounds.
But until they turned to materials called
perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs), which were first
pioneered for use in the field of microfluidics
by UNC chemist Joseph DeSimone (see
page 3) and his colleagues, the NASA team
was having trouble making a chip that could
withstand the rigors of the proposed mission.
Jason Rolland, who helped invent PFPE
materials for microfluidic devices when he
was a graduate student in DeSimone’s lab, said the devices can handle
very small volumes of liquids through tiny channels, and are similar to
microelectronic chips.
“It turned out that the material fit right into the sweet spot
of what NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed to enable this
device to work,” said Rolland, co-founder and director of research
and development at Liquidia Technologies, a company which
licensed the technology from UNC. •
Islands.” The volcanic islands are
world renowned for their scientific
importance, as exemplified by the
giant tortoises, marine iguanas and
Darwin finches whose existence vividly
illustrate the mechanisms of evolution.
UNC geographer Stephen Walsh
has conducted research on the islands
for the past few years, along with his
former Ph.D. student, Carlos Mena,
who’s now on the faculty of the
University of San Francisco Quito
(USFQ), a private university in Ecuador.
They collaborate with doctoral students
and faculty at UNC, USFQ and in the
Galapagos Islands.
Walsh and a UNC delegation traveled
to the Galapagos Islands in February
to discuss further opportunities for
collaboration with USFQ, the Galapagos
National Park and the Charles Darwin
Research Station. Carolina faculty and
administrators visited Isabela Island, where
invasive species of plants and animals
are displacing native and endemic flora
and fauna, and increasing tourism and
immigration have begun to threaten
this vulnerable ecosystem. Scientists are
hoping new research can help preserve the
islands’ fragile ecosystems and mediate the
conflicts between resource conservation and
economic development.
“The opportunity exists for UNC to
lead an interdisciplinary initiative that will
emphasize research, education and outreach
programs to address issues compelling to
science and society,” said Walsh. “Carolina
can make an important and lasting impact on
the Galapagos archipelago, the region and
the world.” •
Located about 600 miles off the
coast of mainland Ecuador, the Galapagos
Islands are a living laboratory for studying
evolution, global environmental change,
and the conflicts between nature and
society.
There’s good reason why the
Galapagos are often called the “Enchanted
Guarding the
Galapagos
Holden Thorp
European Space Agency
ExoMars
Rover
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Fast track for science teachers
A new program will increase the number of science teachers produced at UNC.
Biology and physics majors will be offered a chance to earn N.C. teaching licensure
while simultaneously completing their undergraduate science degrees.
North Carolina’s public schools need 525 new science teachers each year, but the
UNC system’s 15 teacher education programs, including Carolina’s, collectively produced
only around 200 teachers in 2006-2007. Science is one of the highest need areas for
qualified teachers in public schools today.
The School of Education and the College have collaborated to create the program
UNC-BEST (UNC Baccalaureate Education in Science and Teaching) that will launch
this fall.
In the past, an undergraduate science major at Carolina had to pursue additional
study after graduation to fulfill the requirements for teaching licensure. Now, students can
complete their science degree and fulfill licensure requirements during their undergraduate
years.
“We know that one of the most important factors that influences young people to
pursue careers in science is an excellent and enthusiastic high school teacher,” said Laurie
McNeil, chair of the department of physics and astronomy. “We expect that UNC-BEST
graduates will help to increase the number of North Carolinians who prepare themselves
to participate fully in the ‘knowledge economy.’” •
26 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Highlights Bookshelf H i g h l i g h t s
Harmful algae
taking advantage
of global warming
You know that green scum
creeping across the surface of your local
public water reservoir? Or maybe it’s
choking out a favorite fishing spot or
livestock watering hole. It’s probably
cyanobacteria — blue-green algae —
and, according to a paper in the journal
Science, it relishes the weather extremes
that accompany global warming.
Hans Paerl, a Kenan Professor of
marine and environmental sciences, is
co-author of the paper. He calls the algae
the “cockroach of lakes.” It’s everywhere
and it’s hard to exterminate — but when
the sun comes up it
doesn’t scurry to a
corner, it’s still there,
and it’s growing, as
thick as 3 feet in some
areas.
The algae has been
linked to digestive,
neurological and skin
diseases and fatal liver
disease in humans.
It costs municipal
water systems many millions of dollars
to treat in the United States alone. And
though it’s more prevalent in developing
countries, it grows on key bodies of
water across the world, including Lake
Victoria in Africa, the Baltic Sea, Lake
Erie and bays of the Great Lakes, and in
the main reservoir for Raleigh, N.C.
“It’s long been known that nutrient
runoff contributes to cyanobacterial
growth. Now scientists can factor in
temperature and global warming,” said
Paerl.
Fish and other aquatic animals
and plants stand little chance against
cyanobacteria. The algae crowds the
surface water, shading out plants below.
The fish generally avoid cyanobacteria,
so they’re left without food. And when
the algae die, they sink to the bottom
where their decomposition can lead to
extensive depletion of oxygen. •
Early bird
doesn’t always
get the worm
New research from a
UNC biologist runs somewhat
counter to common wisdom,
which holds that baby birds
in eggs laid before their brood
mates have a better chance of
surviving long enough to leave
the nest.
But after studying a
population of Lincoln’s sparrows
in a remote stretch of Colorado, Keith Sockman, an assistant biology professor, has
discovered that first-laid eggs are, in fact, the least likely to hatch at all.
“I believe this is the first study to follow siblings from laying through fledging and
demonstrate that the effect of laying order on hatching is very
different from its effect post-hatching,” said Sockman.
Female Lincoln’s sparrows lay one egg per day, usually
producing three to five eggs. While carefully observing and
tracking the tiny birds, Sockman noticed that typically, mothers
do not settle down and start incubating the eggs right away.
Sockman believes this contributes to the lower probability that
first-laid eggs will hatch at all — but also helps to ensure that
overall, a greater number of reasonably healthy, feisty chicks
hatch and go on to develop into young birds. •
Keith Sockman
Hans Paerl
Keith Sockman studied Lincoln’s sparrows.
Lake Taihu, China
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Carolina Arts & Sciences • Fall 2008 • 27
Bookshelf C o l l e g e B o o k s h e l f
• Holy Smoke: The Big
Book of North Carolina
Barbecue (UNC Press) by
southern culture expert John
Shelton Reed, fellow pork
lover Dale Volberg Reed and
alumnus William McKinney.
This definitive guide to
the people, places, holy
rituals and culinary secrets
behind the world’s best ’cue,
includes: interviews with pit
masters, instructions for cooking a whole
hog, recipes from Crook’s and Mama Dip’s,
and lyrics from Clyde Edgerton, the Bluegrass
Experience and the Red Clay Ramblers.
• Dreaming Up America (Seven Stories
Press) by Russell Banks ’67. The UNC
College alumnus and acclaimed novelist
has published his first nonfiction book, a
collection of essays on American origins,
values, heroes, conflicts and contradictions.
Banks draws on literature, film, history
and contemporary politics to explore the
intermingling creative and destructive
forces that have shaped
and changed the American
dream.
• Experimental Philosophy
(Oxford University Press)
co-edited by Joshua Knobe
(UNC) and Shaun Nichols
(University of Arizona). In
one of the most exciting
and controversial recent
developments in the field,
philosophers are engaging
human subjects directly to learn more
about what people think and how routine
intuitions affect personal perspective. This
volume brings together leading articles and
papers on this new approach.
• Old War: Poems
(Houghton Mifflin) by
Alan Shapiro. This ninth
collection of poems by
the UNC W.R. Kenan Jr.
Distinguished Professor
of English explores the
vagaries of love and the
place of beauty in a time
of war. Shapiro uses
varied forms (first-person
lyrics to
dramatic monologues) and
characters (from a country-and-
western singer to a
Jewish stand-up comic in
heaven).
• Cuba in the American
Imagination (UNC Press)
by Louis A. Pérez Jr. The
eminent Cuban historian
discusses the powerful
metaphors used in
popular political narratives
to describe the United States’ troubled
relationship with its island
neighbor: Cuba as ripe fruit,
a woman, a child learning
to ride a bicycle. Perez is J.
Carlyle Sitterson Professor
of History and director
of UNC’s Institute for the
Study of the Americas.
• General Lee’s Army
(Simon & Schuster) by
Joseph T. Glatthaar. The
renowned UNC historian
and Alan Stephenson Distinguished
Professor drew from letters, diaries and
official records to rewrite the story of
General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern
Virginia and of the Civil War itself. The
author’s scholarship and vivid narrative, and
the soldiers’ own words, will carry readers
from Manassas, Antietam and Gettysburg to
the final surrender at Appomattox.
• The Magical Campus: University of
North Carolina Writings of Thomas Wolfe
(University of South Carolina Press), co-edited
by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Aldo P.
Magi, foreword by Pat Conroy. This first-ever
collection of Wolfe’s earliest published
work, created while
he was a Chapel Hill
undergraduate, includes
poems, plays, short fiction,
news articles and essays.
Wolfe began his studies
at UNC in 1916 at age
15. Magi’s library of more
than 3,000 Wolfe items is
housed at Carolina.
• Life of William Grimes,
the Runaway Slave
(Oxford University Press),
co-edited by William L. Andrews and Regina
E. Mason. Grimes’ autobiography is the first
fugitive slave narrative in American history,
which the author wrote and published on
his own in 1823 and 1855. This annotated
edition represents a historic partnership
between Andrews, a leading scholar of
North American slave narratives, and Mason,
Grimes’ great-great-great granddaughter,
who spent 15 years researching and
documenting his life. Andrews, UNC’s
E. Maynard Adams Professor of English
and Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts
and Humanities, is editor of another new
volume, The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt
(Penguin Classics), a selection of works by
the late-19th century author. Chestnutt was
the first African-American novelist to achieve
national critical acclaim. •
A+S Fall 2008 FINAL.indd 29 9/11/08 4:36:33 PM
2008 H o n o r R o l l
28 • Fall 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Thank You!
The College of Arts and Sciences gratefully
thanks the more than 12,000 donors who
supported its students, faculty and programs
in fiscal year 2007-2008. Every charitable gift
made to the College strengthens its 215-year-old
tradition of educating students in the arts,
humanities and sciences.
The 2008 Honor Roll recognizes donors
whose gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences
between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008,
qualify them for membership in the following
giving societies:
• Chancellors’ Circle — $10,000 and above
• Carolina Society — $5,000 to $9,999
• 1793 Society — $2,000 to $4,999
• Dean’s Circle — $1,500 to $1,999
Young Alumni Levels
Classes 1998 to 2002: $500 and above
Classes 2003 to 2007: $250 and above
In academic year 2008, 1,141 donors made
gifts to the College at the Dean’s Circle level
or higher, providing the College with vital
resources for creating and maintaining a
first-rate academic experience at Carolina.
The Honor Roll does not include bequests or
other planned gifts to the College. Furthermore,
it omits the 43 anonymous donors. This list
has been prepared with great care to ensure
its accuracy. To report a mistake, please
contact Tina CoyneSmith at (919) 962-1682
or tc@unc.edu.
Thank you, once again, for generously
supporting the College of Arts and Sciences
at Carolina!
Chancellors’ Circle ($10,000 and above)
• Peter Ackerman, Washington, DC
• Ivan V. Anderson Jr. and Renee Dobbins
Anderson, Charleston, SC
• R. Frank Andrews IV, Washington, DC
• Q. Whitfield Ayres, McLean, VA
• Donald Aaron Baer, Washington, DC
• Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Beasley, Burns, TN
• John B. and Laura Hobby Beckworth,
Houston, TX
• McKay Belk, Charlotte, NC
• Philip D. Bennett, London, UK
• Daniel Lewis Bernstein, Bronxville, NY
• Dr. Thad L. Beyle and Patricia C. Beyle,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Mr. and Mrs. Laszlo Birinyi Jr., Southport, CT
• Peter and Heather Boneparth, Lawrence, NY
• Mary Mills and W. Lee Borden, Goldsboro, NC
• Michael L. Boyatt, Beech Mountain, NC
• Deanne and Kirk J. Bradley, Chapel Hill, NC
• Stephen G. Brantley, MD, Tampa, FL
• William S. Brenizer, Glen Head, NY
• Anne Faris Brennan, New York, NY
• Kristin Lynn Breuss and Geoffrey P. Burgess,
London, UK
• Amy Woods Brinkley, Charlotte, NC
• Edgar M. Bronfman, New York, NY
• James Asa Bruton III, Clifton, VA
• Catherine Bryson, Santa Monica, CA
• Nancy Faison Bryson, Vero Beach, FL
• Timothy Brooks Burnett, Greensboro, NC
• Mr. and Mrs. John W. Burress III,
Winston-Salem, NC
• Sunny Harvey and R. Lee Burrows Jr., Atlanta, GA
• Ann Williams and Robert L. Burrus,
Richmond, VA
• Susan S. Caudill and W. Lowry Caudill,
Durham, NC
• Norman Phillip Chapel, Edina, MN
• Mr. Max C. Chapman Jr., New York, NY
• Munroe and Becky Cobey, Chapel Hill, NC
• Huddy and Jerry Cohen, Chapel Hill, NC
• Harvey Colchamiro, Greensboro, NC
• James Reuben Copland IV, New York, NY
• Vicki U. and David F. Craver, Cos Cob, CT
• Rose Cunneen Crawford, Bronxville, NY
• Estate of John Marvin Crews*, Wilmington, NC
• Laura Brown Cronin, Acton, MA
• Stephen Mark Cumbie and Druscilla French,
McLean, VA
• James Lecil Curtis, Boston, MA
• Hildegarde O.R. Dahl, Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
• James A. Davis, New Hope, PA
• Lyell C. Dawes Jr., Pinehurst, NC
• Estate of Helen Finch Dial*, Dillon, MT
• Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Dorn, Washington, DC
• Martha Scott and Craig Prescott Dunlevie,
Atlanta, GA
• Steven S. and Katherine S. Dunlevie, Atlanta, GA
• Stuart E. Eizenstat, Chevy Chase, MD
• Eli N. Evans, New York, NY
• Alan S. Fields, Lexington, MA
• Linda Whitham and Jaroslav T. Folda III,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Jeffrey Butler Franklin, Goldsboro, NC
• Henry and Molly Froelich, Charlotte, NC
• Estate of Sarah Fore Gaines*, Greensboro, NC
• Adam D. Galinsky, Chicago, IL
• Lawrence L. and Carol G. Gellerstedt, Atlanta, GA
• Cosby Wiley George, Greenwich, CT
• Dr. R. Barbara Gitenstein and
Dr. Donald Brett Hart, Pennington, NJ
• Kathleen Gurley and Burton B. Goldstein Jr.,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Elliott Goldstein, Atlanta, GA
• Leonard Goodman, New York, NY
• N. Jay Gould, New York, NY
• Peter Thatcher Grauer, New York, NY
• Bernard Gray, Atlanta, GA
• Julia Sprunt Grumbles, Chapel Hill, NC
• Estate of John R. Guthrie Jr.*, Newport News, VA
• Robert H. Hackney Jr. and Shauna Holiman,
Old Greenwich, CT
• Henry Guy Hagan, Lutherville, MD
• Lucía V. Halpern, London, UK
• Jennifer Lloyd Halsey, Menlo Park, CA
• Henry Haywood Hamilton III, Katy, TX
• Benjamin C. Hammett, Palo Alto, CA
• Robin March Hanes, Asheville, NC
• John William Harris, Charlotte, NC
• Lawrence Douglas Hayes, Stanley, NC
• Emmett Boney Haywood, Raleigh, NC
• Alan Bernard Heilig, Aventura, FL
• Leonard Gray Herring, North Wilkesboro, NC
• Margaret and David M. Hicks Jr., London, UK
• Judge Truman and Joyce Hobbs, Montgomery, AL
• William T. Hobbs II, Charlotte, NC
• Margaret Parker and J. David Holden Jr.,
Wilmington, DE
• W. Howard Holsenbeck, Houston, TX
• Jerry Leo Horner Jr., Raleigh, NC
• Charlotte B. and Frederick S. Hubbell,
Des Moines, IA
• Charlotte Poteat Hughes, Marion, NC
• Barbara R. and Pitt Hyde, Memphis, TN
• Carolyn True and Satoshi Ito, Lanexa, VA
• Jane Berry and John F. Jacques, Nashville, TN
• Lynn Buchheit Janney and Stuart S. Janney,
Butler, MD
• George H. and Janet J. Johnson, Atlanta, GA
• Lyle V. Jones, Pittsboro, NC
• Sheryl Gillikin and Stuart Harrington Jordan,
Fayetteville, NC
• William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan, Fayetteville, NC
• Fred N. Kahn, Asheville, NC
• Gary S. Kaminsky, Haverford, PA
• Emily S. Kass and Charles Weinraub,
Chapel Hill, NC
• Frances Murray Keenan, Baltimore, MD
• Frank* and Betty Kenan, Chapel Hill, NC
• Thomas S. Kenan III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Willis T. King Jr., Summit, NJ
• Courtney Horner and James W. Kluttz Sr.,
Winston-Salem, NC
• Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod, Arlington, VA
• Mary Noel and William M. Lamont Jr., Dallas, TX
• M. Steven Langman, New York, NY
• Brian L. Largent, Wilmington, DE
• W. Hampton Lefler Jr., Hickory, NC
• Seymour and Carol Levin, Greensboro, NC
• Holly and Hal Levinson, Charlotte, NC
• Elizabeth and Michael Liotta, Mooresville, NC
• Elizabeth Stewart and N. Thompson Long,
Fox Point, WI
• Nolan Delano Lovins, Lenoir, NC
• Douglas J. and Shawn T. Mackenzie, Palo Alto, CA
• Robert Allen and Vivian Dixon Manekin,
Owings Mills, MD
• John F. Mars, McLean, VA
• Sarah Robbins Mars, Morristown, NJ
• S. Spence McCachren Jr., Maryville, TN
• Joseph M. and Karen McConnell